No Strings Attached (Film) - Trailer
No Strings Attached is a 2011 American romantic comedy film starring Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher. The film is directed by Ivan Reitman. Emma (Portman) and Adam (Kutcher) are lifelong friends who have sex one morning and worry about their friendship being ruined. They make a pact to have "no strings attached", to have casual sex without falling in love with each other. The film was released in the United States and Canada on January 21, 2011.No Strings Attached is directed by Ivan Reitman based on a screenplay by Elizabeth Meriwether titled Friends With Benefits. The Paramount Pictures film was first announced in March 2010 as an untitled project. Actors Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman were cast in the lead roles, and Paramount anticipated a release date of January 7, 2011. Reitman said about the premise of casual sex, "I noticed from my own kids that with this generation in particular, young people find it easier to have a sexual relationship than an emotional one. That is how the sexes deal with each other today." Principal photography began in May 2010. By November 2010, the film was titled No Strings Attached with a new release date of January 21, 2011.The film was released in 3,018 theaters in the United States and Canada on January 21, 2011. Its target demographic was women between 17 and 24 years old, and its primary competition was The Dilemma. Interest tracking reflected the target demographic's gaining interest in the film leading up to its release, and tracking also revealed "good early awareness" from Hispanic audiences. The studio predicted for the film to gross in the "mid-to-high teens" millions, similar to past romantic comedies rated "R" (restricted to 17 years old and up) by the Motion Picture Association of America. With No Strings Attached as the only wide opener in the United States and Canada, it was uncertain if it would rank first at the box office above The Green Hornet, which opened the previous weekend in first place with $33.5 million. Ultimately, No Strings Attached beat The Green Hornet with an opening weekend gross of $20.3 million. Its opening was better than expected for the genre. The attendance was "overwhelmingly female" with 70% of the audience being women.