Anyone But You, starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell, went from one of the most anticipated movies of the year to the most dubious after the teaser trailer was released. Fans who fawned over the casting and fell for the behind-the-scenes hype feared the worst when the brief teaser seemed to lack chemistry. But a new, full trailer for the film, which premieres December 22, falls back into familiar romantic comedy rhythms that may put people’s minds at ease.
Going into this trailer, we already knew that Ben (Powell) and Bea (Sweeney) are one-time lovers-turned-enemies who happen to reunite at a destination wedding and decide to pretend they’re together. In the new trailer, we get an explanation for their fake dating scheme: Bea’s parents are trying to get her back with her ex (Darren Barnet), while Ben is hung up on another wedding guest. If they pretend to be in love, it’ll get Bea’s parents off her back and make Ben’s dream girl jealous, or so the logic goes.
Of course, things don’t go as planned, because these two can’t stand each other and have had/are having steamy sex. (This is an R-rated rom-com, baby!) Shenanigans inevitably ensue, many to do with the Australian landscape (there are spiders everywhere over there).
Speaking of the Australian landscape, Sweeney and Powell returned last week for some Anyone But You reshoots. “We were hoping that the strike would finish so we could film these extra things we wanted to do. We were very excited that it ended in time,” director Will Gluck told The Sydney Morning Herald. The filming was reportedly pick-up shots of some gorgeous local vistas: “Hopefully this ‘beautiful Australia’ stuff will make it so much better.”
However, sneaking in some reshoots just a month before the movie is slated to debut once again roused some skepticism about the quality of the film. The actors strike certainly made things tricky for everyone, but was the version Sony was going to release before the strike ended even a finished product? Whatever the case may be, the new trailer will either reassure doubters or turn people off of Anyone But You completely.