Romance sells a quarter of all books. On cinema screens, it has all but vanished. That tension sat at the centre of a San Diego Comic-Con panel on Thursday, 23 July 2026, titled "Romance on the Big Screen: Why It's About Damn Time," held in Room 24ABC of the San Diego Convention Center at 2:30 PM PDT (Comic-Con 2026 schedule).

Veronica Roth — best known as the author of the Divergent series — moderated the panel and delivered the opening remarks. It was her first-ever appearance on a Comic-Con panel, according to her Instagram. Roth opened with a figure that framed the entire session: romance accounts for 23% of all book sales (Deadline).

The panelists spanned both sides of the adaptation pipeline. On the author side: Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings, who write together under the pen name Christina Lauren; Ali Hazelwood, author of The Love Hypothesis and Love, Theoretically; and Maurene Goo, author of One and Only. On the production side: Max Siemers, co-founder of Magic Hour Entertainment, and Laura Lewis and Amanda Palley, co-founders of Rebelle Media — a company built around adapting romance novels for screen (Deadline).

Lewis delivered one of the panel's most striking data points: romance on the theatrical screen — meaning films released in cinemas, as opposed to streaming — has dropped over 75% in the last 20 years (Deadline). The genre that dominates bookstore sales has been steadily pushed off cinema marquees.

The panel did not just diagnose the gap. It announced projects meant to fill it. Amanda Palley closed the session by revealing that Rebelle Media has added Sarah Adams' When in Rome series to its development slate — a roster of book adaptations the company is preparing for screen (Deadline).

Other adaptations are already moving. Christina Lauren's In a Holidaze is being adapted as a film by screenwriter Tiffany Paulson for Netflix, expected later in 2026. Magic Hour Entertainment is behind an adaptation of Christina Lauren's novel Love & Other Words (Deadline).

There was a personal Comic-Con thread woven through the panel, too. Hobbs and Billings, the duo behind Christina Lauren, first met 17 years ago sleeping on the sidewalk outside the San Diego Convention Center — waiting in line for The Twilight Saga: New Moon panel (Deadline). They came as fans. They returned as authors whose own books are now in development.

An autograph session featuring Ali Hazelwood followed the panel, scheduled for 4:00 PM at location AA02 (Comic-Con 2026 schedule).

For a genre that sells one in four books bought in the US, the screen presence has not matched the shelf presence. What this panel made clear is that a group of authors and producers are actively trying to close that gap — and they are using Comic-Con, the largest fan convention in North America, to say so.