Colleen Hoover's Literary Success Threatens Film Quality and Cultural Standards
Source: Eileen Jones. "Colleen Hoover’s Awful Hollywood Reign Has Only Just Begun." March 17, 2026. jacobin.com
The Gist
The author argues that Colleen Hoover's books make terrible movies because they're poorly written and emotionally manipulative. Since Hoover is becoming more powerful in Hollywood and plans to make many more movies, we're going to get stuck with a lot of bad films.
Conclusion
Colleen Hoover's expanding influence in Hollywood will produce a wave of low-quality films that prioritize commercial appeal over artistic merit
Premises
- Reminders of Him exemplifies poor filmmaking with shallow character development, contrived plotting, and manipulative emotional tactics
- Hoover openly admits to writing 'easy reads' without literary ambition, prioritizing accessibility over craft
- The film's plot relies on absurd contrivances to generate sympathy while avoiding genuine moral complexity
- Hoover is gaining significant control over film adaptations through her production company, ensuring more films will follow this formula
- Her commercial success ('queen of Hollywood, with enough IP to rival Marvel') will enable continued production of similar content
Assumptions
- Commercial success in publishing does not necessarily translate to quality filmmaking
- Films should prioritize artistic merit and genuine emotional depth over mass appeal
- Audiences deserve more sophisticated storytelling than what Hoover provides
- Literary craft and attention to sentence-level writing correlates with overall quality