How 'My Best Friend’s Wedding' messed with Julia Roberts’s image and changed rom-coms for good.

https://www.vulture.com/2022/02/my-best-friends-wedding-ending-changed.html

When TriStar Pictures announced that Julia Roberts, who’d broken out in Pretty Woman in 1990 and subsequently become the subject of endless tabloid fixation, was set to star in another rom-com, no one was particularly surprised, Scott Meslow points out in his book, From Hollywood With Love. But the project was bolder than it first appeared. As any fan of the 1997 film can attest, My Best Friend’s Wedding is less a conventional happily ever after, in which we traipse along with our lovable protagonist long enough to see her falter but eventually be rewarded with love in the end, and more like a challenge to the audience: “How much do you like Julia Roberts, anyway?” Meslow asks. Enough to sympathize with her character Julianne as she swiftly and methodically sabotages a happy relationship in the name of her own selfish pursuits? Enough to sit by and watch her not get the guy? It was a role that was tough to write and even tougher to make convincing on screen. Here’s the story behind it all, according to Meslow.