''A Guy Thing'' is a 2003 American

comedy film The comedy film is a film genre that emphasizes humor. These films are designed to amuse audiences and make them laugh. Films in this genre typically have a happy ending, with dark comedy being an exception to this rule. Comedy is one of the o ...

directed by Chris Koch and starring Jason Lee, Julia Stiles and Selma Blair. It was a box office and critical failure.

Plot

Paul Morse and Karen Cooper are about to get married in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

. During his

bachelor party A bachelor party (in the United States), also known as a stag weekend, stag do or stag party (in the United Kingdom, Commonwealth countries, and Ireland), or a buck's night (in Australia and Canada), is a party held for or arranged by a man wh ...

, Paul has a chat with one of the dancers at the party, Becky Jackson, and they find that they have an affinity for each other. Paul wakes up the next morning and is terrified to see Becky in the bed next to him. Assuming they slept together, Paul rushes Becky out of his apartment and hopes never to see her again. He tries to cover up the connection for the remaining six days before the wedding. Unfortunately, Becky unexpectedly shows up around town and turns out to be Karen's cousin. Even worse, Becky's malicious ex-boyfriend, police detective Ray Donovan, had Becky followed and photographed. Becky and Paul meet again to steal those pictures from Ray's apartment. Further problems arise with family and friends consistently showing up at the wrong times. Genital crabs, dirty underwear in the toilet tank, a horny best friend, and a best man/brother who is in love with the bride all provide for a week of wedding preparation hijinks. Through the snowballing of all his implausible lies and half-truths, Paul receives corroboration and support from an unexpected corner; what seems to be a coordinated network of other men, including friends, complete strangers and, to Paul's astonishment, Karen's own father; all who give the same explanation: "It's a guy thing".

Cast

Production

In November 1999, it was reported that

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had acquired

comedy Comedy is a genre of dramatic works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. Origins Comedy originated in ancient Greec ...

spec script A spec script, also known as a speculative screenplay, is a non-commissioned and unsolicited screenplay. It is usually written by a screenwriter who hopes to have the script optioned and eventually purchased by a producer, production company, or ...

,'' A Guy Thing'', written by Greg Glienna and Pete Schwaba for David Ladd to produce. Principal photography took place from November 2001 to February 2002, in

, Washington and

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. The release date was originally slated for August 23, 2002 and then September 20, 2002 hence having a copyright date of 2002 in the credits, before finally being released January 17, 2003 in time for Valentine's Day.

Release

The film debuted at #7 in the U.S. box office, taking

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6,988,749 in its opening weekend, before falling to #11 the following week.

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, it has a 25% approval rating based on 104 reviews, with an average score of and a consensus: "Wasting the talent of its leads, ''A Guy Thing'' is a predictable romantic comedy that relies on cheap laughs." On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

the film has a score of 27% based on reviews from 29 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews. Audiences surveyed by

CinemaScore CinemaScore is an American market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts from the data. Background Ed Mintz, who ...

gave the film a grade "B−" on scale of A to F. Dennis Harvey of

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

said that the film "does get slightly better as it goes along" but suggested that the multiple rewrites polished any creativity or originality out of the script.

References

External links

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Filming Locations
at MoviePlaces.tv {{DEFAULTSORT:Guy Thing, A 2003 films 2003 romantic comedy films Films set in Seattle American romantic comedy films American sex comedy films Films scored by Mark Mothersbaugh Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films 20th Century Fox films 2000s sex comedy films 2000s English-language films 2000s American films English-language romantic comedy films English-language sex comedy films