The biggest rom-com box office success was and still is My Big Fat Greek Wedding. It was a surprise hit, about the daughter of a conservative, middle-class Greek family desperate to marry her off, falling for a richer, upper-class suitor.
If one looks at the rom-coms after the highest-grossing ever, one can see the star-dominated film industry, Mel Gibson in What Woman Want, Will Smith in Hitch, Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.
In 1994 Four Weddings And A Funeral became a surprise hit. It was not their first attempt at the genre, they had had The Tall Guy and even their very first film about an interracial gay couple at the time of race riots and Thatcher's homophobia, has some romantic comedy elements along with the more serious drama and social issues.
However after Four Weddings, there were a string of films with Hugh Grant playing the dashing, slightly effeminate and puppy-like sex symbol, these include Notting Hill, Bridget Jones, About A Boy and Love Actually. In the middle two aformentioned rom-coms he developped a more negative and arrrogant side of a character, especially in the Bridget Jones films. However, these films selled, with some having IP (intellectual property), Bridget Jones being based on a book series based on a column, being a direct parody of Jane Austen's classic romantic novel "Pride and Prejudice", and Nick Hornby's About A Boy (which has now been turned into a series).
The Bridget Jones franchise has turned into Working Title's most profitable films, even more so in the UK however, as the most recent entry Bridget Jones's Baby demonstrates.
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