by Christian Kresmann, Founder - Beyond Creativity | 2026, Jun, 22 | business, filmmaking, leadership
Three minutes to read this. Years to see what I’m talking about.
Leadership presence is trainable. But not the way we’re doing now.
Why Most Leadership Development Misses the Point
I’ve been in acting studios for years. Also sat through corporate leadership workshops. The gap between how actors train and how executives prepare is massive.
Actors show up to weekly studio classes. Places like the Chubbuck Studio in Los Angeles. They drill presence, state management, emotional availability. Every Tuesday night. For years. Training woven into their routine the same way a violinist runs scales.
Executives get a two-day offsite once a year. Read a leadership book on the flight home. Back to meetings by Monday.
The split shows up fast. Actors develop presence as a skill. Executives talk about presence as a concept they’re supposed to have.
Three Things Actors Understand About Training That Leaders Miss
1. Preparation Is About State, Not Information
Walk into a green room before a high-stakes scene. You won’t find actors cramming lines. You’ll find them regulating their nervous system. Dropping into their body. Running an internal check: Am I open? Grounded? Available?
Walk into a conference room before a high-stakes pitch. Executives are loading three more slides.
The actor knows the scene lands based on their inner condition. The executive bets on the deck.
Both matter. But only one of them trained the thing that transmits the message. Their presence.
What this means for you: Information prep is table stakes. State prep is what separates flat delivery from impact. Your nervous system broadcasts louder than your words.
2. Presence Is a Skill, Not a Personality Trait
Most people treat presence like charisma. You either have the vibe or you don’t.
Actors know better. Presence is disciplined attention. The trained ability to stay open under pressure instead of collapsing into your head.
Trainable. But only if you train.
Weekly classes. Repeated exposure to discomfort. Feedback loops that make you notice when you vanish into thought, then pull you back into the room.
Corporate leadership development skips this entirely. Stays conceptual. Talks about executive presence like a vibe you project by wearing the right jacket and speaking with confidence.
That’s performance. Not presence.
What this means for you: Presence isn’t about looking the part. It’s about staying in your body when the pressure hits. The room feels the difference immediately.
3. Calm Is Active Attention, Not the Absence of Chaos
Actors treat calm as a state they cultivate. Not something that shows up when conditions align.
Calm means open, grounded, available. Even when the scene collapses.
Leaders need the same capacity. But most don’t train for this state. They hope calm shows up when the quarter tanks or the team implodes.
Nope.
Calm under pressure is a trained state. Requires repetition. Weekly studio work. The same rigor a cellist brings to their instrument.
Because that’s what we’re talking about. The instrument isn’t your strategy or your slide deck.
It’s your nervous system.
What this means for you: Waiting for calm to arrive when stakes are high is a losing bet. Calm is something you build through practice, not something you summon on demand.
The Real Question
If you’re walking into high-stakes moments with an instrument you’ve never learned to play, what do you expect to happen?
Training your nervous system isn’t optional. It’s the foundation everything else sits on.
Actors figured this out decades ago. They built studios. Weekly classes. Repetition until the skill becomes reflex.
Most leadership development hasn’t caught up. Still focused on frameworks and slide decks. Missing the thing that determines whether the message lands or dies in the air.
I’m not saying throw out strategy. I’m saying add the other half. The half that makes strategy worth hearing.
How to Start Training Presence
You don’t need to enroll in acting school. But you do need consistent practice.
Start small:
• Set aside 10 minutes three times a week. Sit. Notice your breath. Notice when your attention drifts. Bring focus back. Repeat.
• Before your next meeting, spend 60 seconds checking your state. Am I tense? Where? Am I grounded? Drop your attention into your body instead of staying stuck in your head.
• Record yourself presenting. Watch without sound. What does your body communicate? Tension? Openness? Presence or performance?
The gap between actors and executives isn’t talent. It’s training.
One group treats their nervous system like an instrument that needs tuning.
The other group hopes everything works out.
Common Questions About Presence Training
Is presence training the same as meditation?
Not exactly. Meditation trains attention. Presence training applies that attention under pressure. You’re learning to stay open and grounded when stakes are high, not just when you’re sitting quietly.
How long does this training take to show results?
You’ll notice shifts in two to three weeks of consistent practice. Real skill develops over months. Actors train for years before presence becomes second nature.
Do I need a coach or class for this?
Helps. Feedback speeds up the process. But you don’t need formal training to start. Begin with basic body awareness and state checks before meetings.
What if I’m naturally introverted? Does presence training work differently?
Presence isn’t about being loud or extroverted. It’s about being fully there. Introverts often have an advantage here because they’re already comfortable with internal focus.
Does this replace traditional leadership development?
No. Strategy, communication frameworks, and decision-making models all matter. Presence training fills the gap those programs miss. It’s the delivery system for everything else.
How do actors practice presence outside of class?
They check their state before stepping on set. Run quick body scans between takes. Notice tension and release through breath. Small rituals repeated hundreds of times until they become automatic.
What’s the biggest mistake people make when trying to develop presence?
Treating presence like a performance they put on. Real presence is the opposite. It’s dropping the performance and showing up as you are, fully grounded and available.
Key Takeaways
• Presence is a trainable skill, not an innate trait. Actors prove this through consistent, repetitive practice in weekly studio classes.
• State management matters more than information overload. Your internal condition determines how your message lands, not how many slides you prepare.
• Calm is an active, cultivated state of attention. You train for calm the same way musicians train their instrument, through deliberate repetition.
• Most corporate leadership development skips the nervous system entirely. The gap between conceptual understanding and embodied skill is where leaders lose impact.
• You don’t need acting school to start. Ten minutes of consistent body awareness practice three times a week builds the foundation.
• The instrument isn’t your strategy. It’s your nervous system. Train accordingly.
by Christian Kresmann, Founder - Beyond Creativity | 2026, Mar, 7 | business, filmmaking
TL;DR: Rom-com releases dropped 67% since 2001 as studios chose franchise safety over original storytelling. Post-pandemic isolation created demand for genuine human connection that superhero films don’t satisfy. Reviving romantic comedies with psychological depth addresses societal needs (loneliness, AI anxiety, burnout) while rebuilding cinema’s extinct mid-budget ecosystem. Filmmakers should partner with psychologists and build community support before approaching distributors.
Quick Answer
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Studios abandoned rom-coms for franchises because they’re easier to market, but 62% of audiences now prefer original stories over sequels
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The pandemic created a loneliness gap that romantic comedies are uniquely positioned to fill with genuine human connection
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Rom-coms built on the hero’s journey framework paired with psychological insights deliver entertainment plus emotional healing
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Mid-budget films ($30-50M) offer better risk-reward ratios than tentpole blockbusters, as proven by “Crazy Rich Asians” ($30M budget, $238M gross)
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Community-first strategy: Build grassroots support with targeted audiences before seeking studio distribution
I’ve been watching cinema eat itself alive for the past decade.
Studios keep churning out franchise installments nobody asked for. Audiences show up out of habit, not excitement. The mid-budget film—the space where romantic comedies once thrived—has nearly vanished.
The numbers tell a brutal story: rom-com releases dropped from 76 in 2001 to just 25 in 2017. That’s a 67% collapse.
Here’s what nobody’s saying: this isn’t about one genre dying. It’s about cinema forgetting what it’s supposed to do.
Why Did Studios Abandon Romantic Comedies?
The shift happened quietly, then all at once.
Studios realized they could pre-frame audience expectations with franchises. When you see a Marvel logo, you know exactly what you’re getting. Action. Quips. A post-credits scene teasing the next installment.
There’s no risk in that equation.
Romantic comedies require selling a new story every single time. You can’t build a cinematic universe around two people falling in love. Each film stands or falls on its own merit.
So studios made a calculated bet: why create something new when you can extend what already works?
The Equalizer got three films. John Wick got four. The DC and Marvel universes spawned dozens of interconnected stories.
The problem? Audiences are exhausted.
Recent research reveals only 29% of consumers keep up with most or all entries in a franchise. Meanwhile, 56% say too many releases feel repetitive, and 62% would prefer original stories over another sequel.
Bottom line: Studios went on autopilot. Audiences are tuning out.
What Created the Opening for Rom-Coms to Return?
The Pandemic Changed Everything
COVID-19 changed something fundamental in how people relate to stories.
We spent months isolated. Relationships strained under the weight of uncertainty. Human connection became something we couldn’t take for granted anymore.
This created an opening for romantic comedies.
The genre offers exactly what people are missing: genuine human connection, emotional vulnerability, and stakes that feel real. Not world-ending threats. Not CGI spectacle. Just two people trying to figure out if they belong together.
That’s not escapism. That’s recognition.
Romantic comedies could do more than entertain. They could heal.
You could structure a rom-com around the hero’s journey (the same framework Disney used in Tarzan and The Lion King) but make the psychological transformation explicit instead of implicit.
Start with a protagonist dealing with post-pandemic isolation. Show them struggling to share vulnerability with others. Take them through adventures and mishaps. Let them discover what’s been blocking real connection.
You’re watching a romantic comedy. You’re also watching someone learn to be human again.
What this means for filmmakers: The comedy makes difficult truths easier to accept. The romance makes the stakes personal. The psychological structure underneath does the real work.
What Are Audiences Really Craving?
People know something’s wrong with cinema. They just can’t articulate what.
It’s like being fed fast food for years and forgetting what a real meal tastes like. You know you’re unsatisfied. You know something’s missing. But you can’t quite name it.
The current cinematic diet consists of spectacle without substance. Fancy effects. Fast cuts. Gimmicks designed to hold attention for 120 minutes without leaving anything behind.
People want to feel stories, not just watch them.
They want transformational storytelling. They want to leave the theater changed, not just distracted.
This is an unconscious need right now. Most audiences can’t express that they’re longing for deeper structural levels in their entertainment.
But they’re starting to realize something’s missing.
Filmmakers have a responsibility here. We created this problem by chasing profit over purpose. We fix it by remembering what storytelling is for.
Key insight: Audiences feel the absence but lack words to describe their hunger for substance.
Do Rom-Coms Make Financial Sense?
The rom-com decline makes no financial sense.
Mid-budget films historically offered studios a profitable, lower-risk model. Movies like “Crazy Rich Asians” ($30 million budget, $238 million gross) prove the model still works.
But studios abandoned it anyway.
The logic goes like this: mid-budget movies carry more risk than low-budget films but don’t offer the massive returns of tentpole blockbusters. So why bother?
This thinking destroyed an entire ecosystem.
Legal dramas like “A Few Good Men.” Coming-of-age stories like “Dead Poets Society.” Romantic comedies like “The Proposal.” All migrated to streaming or disappeared entirely.
Matt Damon explained it perfectly: without DVD sales, films like “The Talented Mr. Ripley” and “The Informant”—his bread and butter—became economically unviable. So he started showing up in Thor movies instead. 😉
The mid-budget space is where careers get built. Where writers experiment. Where diverse stories get told without needing to justify a $200 million budget.
When that space vanishes, cinema becomes a binary: tiny overly artsy indies or massive franchises. Nothing in between.
Romantic comedies could rebuild that middle ground. They don’t require elaborate sets or expensive effects. They need good writing, compelling actors, and emotional honesty.
The reality: Studios stopped believing in a sustainable model because they’re chasing blockbuster returns instead of consistent profitability.
Why Aren’t Streaming Rom-Coms Enough?
Romantic comedies didn’t die. They moved.
While theaters abandoned the genre, streaming platforms embraced it. Netflix’s “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” became an instant hit, spawning two sequels and countless imitators.
The demand exists. The supply just shifted to a different medium.
But streaming creates its own problems.
When your goal becomes completion rate instead of cultural impact, scripts shift toward safety. Safe pacing. Safe jokes. Safe character arcs.
The algorithm punishes boldness that disrupts engagement flow.
Romance without risk starts feeling predictable. The very thing that made romantic comedies special—their ability to surprise you with genuine emotion—gets smoothed out in favor of metrics.
The theatrical experience matters for transformative rom-coms.
Going to the cinema creates a ritual. You plan it. You travel there. You sit in darkness with complete focus for 90 to 120 minutes.
That intentionality deepens the psychological impact. You worked for this experience. You created an event around it.
Streaming offers convenience and reach. But it can’t replicate that immersive intensity.
The solution: Design romantic comedies for the cinematic experience while ensuring they still deliver transformative impact at home.
What Themes Should Modern Rom-Coms Explore?
If we’re serious about reviving romantic comedies with psychological depth, we need to address what people are actually dealing with.
Isolation is obvious. Post-pandemic loneliness created a hunger for connection that franchises can’t satisfy.
But there are other themes begging for exploration.
Irrelevance anxiety driven by artificial intelligence. People watching their jobs get automated. Wondering if they still matter. A romantic comedy about two people finding value in each other while the world tells them they’re obsolete? That resonates.
Burnout culture accelerated by technology. We were promised AI would free up our time. Instead, it just raised expectations. Now you can do more, so you should do more. A rom-com about two overworked people learning to be present with each other? That’s medicine disguised as entertainment.
You create multiple films addressing the same theme from different angles. Each one explores a different facet of the human experience.
The approach: Collaborate with psychologists. Start with the psychological need. Build the hero’s journey around it. Add romantic comedy elements to make the medicine go down easier.
How Do You Get Studios to Take Rom-Coms Seriously?
Studios want proof before they’ll embrace this approach. But you can’t get proof without making the films first.
That’s the catch-22.
Filmmakers need to bypass traditional gatekeepers and go directly to communities.
Say you’re making a romantic comedy about two people dealing with serious health conditions—cancer and multiple sclerosis. That’s 20 million people worldwide who have personal experience with those challenges.
Reach out to patient organizations. Get community buy-in before approaching distributors.
Build grassroots support. Create proof of concept through engagement, not box office numbers.
Then take that community backing to Netflix, Amazon, HBO Max, or Disney. Show them there’s a passionate audience waiting for this story.
The power shift: You’re not asking permission. You’re demonstrating demand. Creating a movement before creating the movie.
What Does Success Look Like in 5 Years?
Five years from now, if this rom-com renaissance actually happens, what changes?
We go back to the roots.
Films like “Groundhog Day” prove you can balance entertainment with genuine character transformation. The rom-com golden era from 1999 to 2005 showed the genre’s potential before studios abandoned it.
Success means creating a new standard for quality.
Audiences leave theaters feeling transformed, not just distracted. They’re satisfied and fulfilled instead of vaguely disappointed.
That feeling—of being genuinely moved by a story—becomes normal again.
We rebuild the mid-budget ecosystem. Writers get to experiment. Diverse stories get told. Actors build careers without needing to join a franchise.
Cinema remembers its purpose: not just to entertain, but to help us understand what it means to be human.
The fancy effects don’t matter. The fast cuts don’t matter. The interconnected universes don’t matter.
Great storytelling matters.
Structure matters. Character transformation matters. Emotional honesty matters.
Romantic comedies could lead this shift because they’re uniquely positioned to do so. They’re accessible without being shallow. They’re entertaining without being empty.
Why this matters: The most interesting story is always about two people figuring out if they belong together. Not a small thing. Everything.
What Should Filmmakers Do Now?
Studios won’t lead this change. They’re too invested in the franchise model, too risk-averse to bet on something unproven.
The responsibility falls on filmmakers and producers.
We need to be bold. Trust ourselves. Create box office successes that prove the model works.
Collaborate with psychologists to identify current psychological crises. Structure stories using the hero’s journey framework. Add romantic comedy elements that make the medicine go down easier.
Build community support before seeking distribution.
Share the work directly with people who need these stories. Let them become advocates.
This approach combines the best of two worlds: the true purpose of storytelling with sustainable profitability.
It’s not easy. It requires bringing a new paradigm to an industry stuck on autopilot.
But the alternative is watching cinema continue eating itself. Watching audiences grow more disconnected. Watching the mid-budget ecosystem disappear completely.
Romantic comedies won’t save cinema by themselves. But they could remind us what cinema is supposed to do.
Tell stories that matter. Create characters we care about. Leave audiences feeling something real.
Final word: Not nostalgia. Necessity.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did romantic comedies disappear from theaters?
Studios shifted to franchise-based filmmaking because pre-established universes (Marvel, DC) require less marketing effort. Rom-coms need fresh stories every time, making them harder to market despite their consistent profitability.
Are romantic comedies still profitable?
Yes. “Crazy Rich Asians” cost $30 million and grossed $238 million. Mid-budget rom-coms offer better risk-reward ratios than $200 million tentpole films. Studios abandoned them despite profitability, not because of it.
How do streaming rom-coms differ from theatrical ones?
Streaming platforms optimize for completion rates, leading to safer scripts. Algorithms punish boldness. Theatrical releases create rituals and intentionality, deepening psychological impact through immersive focus.
What psychological themes work best for modern rom-coms?
Post-pandemic isolation, AI-driven irrelevance anxiety, and technology-accelerated burnout culture. These themes address real societal needs while maintaining entertainment value through romance and comedy.
How do filmmakers prove rom-coms work without studio support?
Build grassroots community support first. For a rom-com about cancer patients, engage the 20 million people affected worldwide. Show distributors there’s proven demand before asking for funding.
What’s the hero’s journey approach to rom-coms?
Start with a psychological need (isolation, burnout). Structure the protagonist’s transformation through adventures and mishaps. Make the internal change explicit rather than implicit. Add comedy and romance to make the medicine easier to swallow.
Will rom-coms alone fix cinema’s problems?
No. But they remind the industry what storytelling is for: creating genuine human connection, emotional transformation, and cultural impact. They rebuild the extinct mid-budget ecosystem where diverse stories thrive.
Why does the theatrical experience matter for transformative rom-coms?
Going to the cinema creates ritual and intentionality. You plan it, travel there, sit in complete focus for 90-120 minutes. This investment deepens the psychological impact compared to at-home streaming.
Key Takeaways
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Rom-com releases collapsed 67% from 2001 to 2017 because studios chose franchise safety over original storytelling, despite rom-coms offering better risk-reward ratios.
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Post-pandemic isolation created unprecedented demand for stories about genuine human connection, emotional vulnerability, and relatable stakes.
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Combining the hero’s journey structure with psychological insights (via psychologist collaboration) transforms rom-coms into healing entertainment that addresses societal needs.
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The mid-budget film ecosystem ($30-50M) is nearly extinct, but rom-coms could rebuild it by proving consistent profitability without requiring $200M budgets.
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Filmmakers should bypass traditional gatekeepers by building grassroots community support with targeted audiences before approaching distributors.
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Streaming platforms optimize for completion rates rather than cultural impact, making theatrical releases essential for truly transformative storytelling experiences.
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Success means audiences leave theaters feeling transformed rather than distracted, rebuilding trust between cinema and viewers through emotional honesty and great storytelling.
