The Rom-Com as a Business Model
What Jonah Feingold's $3M Bet Tells Us About the Future of Indie Film
This month on AOP we’re focused on innovation. When the IndieWire piece on Jonah Feingold and his company It’s Romantical started circulating in my world, the responses were split. Some people were energized. Some were skeptical. A lot of people DM’ed me with a “you need to get this guy on.”
So I invited Jonah on for a special Substack live recording exclusively for paid peeps last month.
Coincidentally, Jonah is exactly the kind of person that theme was made for. Not just because of what he’s building, but because of why. He’s not innovating for the sake of a headline. He’s thinking seriously about real sustainability for himself, for his collaborators, and for a genre that deserves better than being an afterthought.
That kind of ambition is contagious.
Jonah has directed five features, including Busboys starring David Spade and Theo Von which is currently in theaters. His first, Dating & New York, raised $200K from 30 out of 300 investors, premiered at Tribeca, and sold to IFC for triple the budget. Paramount+. Amazon. By any traditional measure, that’s a solid indie success story that you’d think would be a stepping stone to building a career.
However….the ugly truth is that he still couldn’t reliably pay his rent or predict where his next job was coming from. He shared:
“I looked in the mirror and I was like, this has been awesome. This is a dream come true. How come it’s still a struggle to pay rent? And how come I don’t know what my next job is? This isn’t sustainable.”
The math wasn’t mathing…and that clarity inspired him to build Romantical; a media company raising $3M to make rom-coms sustainable. His plan is to generate a compounding IP engine built around the genre, with brand partnerships, live events, digital series, and theatrical films all feeding each other.
His pitch to investors was compelling:
“This is not investing in a movie. You’re investing in an emotion. Romantical in 10 years will be a feeling.”
We got into how the ownership structure actually works. What he’s offering talent and crew. Why he’s talking to a former Resy exec and a serial entrepreneur instead of traditional film money. How pitching VCs compares to pitching studios — and what that difference tells us about the system we’ve all been operating in. And what his advice is for the filmmaker who isn’t ready to raise $3M but needs to make something now.
The genre argument alone is worth the conversation. Less than 3% of theatrical releases in recent years have been romantic comedies. And yet Anyone But You grossed $220 million worldwide on a $25 million budget. Materialists made nearly $108 million on $20 million in 2025.
The audience is here — yearning, SO MUCH YEARNING, and hungry for more.
Just look at what’s happening on streaming: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before launched a Netflix franchise and made Lana Condor a star. Set It Up, the 2018 Netflix sleeper that made people believe the platform could do the genre right. Purple Hearts, while not a comedy, s a romantic drama that quietly became one of Netflix’s most-watched films of 2022.
And this June, Jennifer Lopez returns to the genre in Office Romance, written by Ted Lasso creators Brett Goldstein and Joe Kelly who reportedly came up with the idea by asking themselves who the best rom-com star working today was, and landed on Lopez.
I am fully, completely seated for this one.
There is nothing I love more than a successful, stunning woman at the top of her game — clutching her Chanel, sippin’ on Sauv Blanc, and staring out at a cityscape from a penthouse that has everything except the one thing she actually wants.
Netflix dropping a star-driven rom-com as a summer tentpole certainly helps Jonah’s mission. I hope it’s a sign that the genre is indeed bouncing back.
The IndieWire piece ends with the Mark Duplass line from his 2015 SXSW keynote: “The cavalry isn’t coming.” That sentiment echoes loudly for me — I even called back to it in this piece last year with the wonderful actor Jennifer LeFleur. And it confounds me that eleven years later, it’s less a rallying cry than a fact of life.
The question is what does one build in its place?
I truly hope Romantical is one of the answers. Time will tell. And until then, I am just a girl...standing here...rooting for him.
Keep creating, keep hustling. And as always, thanks for doing this life thing with me!
Come Thru To Our LA Mixer!
We are BACK with our first mixer of 2026! Come by and meet new friends, say hi to some familiar faces, and make new connections within the AOP community. RSVP via this link!
🗓️ Thursday, May 14th from 7 - 9 PM
📍 All Season Brewing | 800 S La Brea Ave Los Angeles, CA 90036
The 5 Biggest Takeaways (For Paid Subscribers)
The full episode is worth your time, but if you need the highlights, here’s what you can’t miss:
Why pitching VCs hits different than pitching studios — and what filmmakers can steal from startup culture.
The exact ownership structure Romantical offers talent and crew
The mistake first-time filmmakers keep making and what Jonah says to do instead.
Why the rom-com isn’t dead and where Jonah thinks it lives now.
The one thing you should be doing today, before your movie is done, before you have anything to sell.
