His 2023 romantic comedy Anyone but You, made for roughly $25million and opening to a modest $6million weekend, became one of the most discussed box-office runs of the post-pandemic era, grossing more than $220million worldwide. Its run drew extensive trade coverage of the commercial viability of the theatrical romantic comedy.
While at Cornell he founded the student theatre group Upstage Left, worked as a disc jockey at the campus radio station WVBR, and satisfied his senior thesis requirement by writing a play. He has spoken publicly about the value of a liberal arts education in his career, returning to Cornell in October 2015 as the Munschauer Career Series speaker.
Gluck has said he likes to deconstruct genres and stories, and that he avoids reading coverage of his own work.
Transition to film (2009–2011)
Gluck made his feature directing debut with Fired Up! (2009), a cheerleading-camp comedy released by Screen Gems. Made for roughly $20million, it grossed approximately $18million worldwide and was a commercial disappointment.
Friends with Benefits (2011), which Gluck co-wrote, directed and produced, starred Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis alongside Woody Harrelson,Richard Jenkins, Jenna Elfman, Patricia Clarkson and Stone. The film grossed more than $150million worldwide. Like Easy A, it has been described as taking a self-aware approach to genre convention, with characters commenting on the romantic-comedy tropes the film itself uses.
Annie, television and Peter Rabbit (2013–2021)
In 2013 Gluck co-created, directed and produced The Michael J. Fox Show, marking Michael J. Fox's return to series television. The NBC comedy launched to a first-week audience of roughly 16million viewers and strong reviews, but was cancelled after one season in May 2014.
Anyone but You, which Gluck directed, produced and co-wrote with Ilana Wolpert from her original story, is a loose modern adaptation of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell as antagonistic exes forced into a fake relationship at a destination wedding in Australia, it was produced for approximately $25million and released by Sony on December 22, 2023.
It opened to roughly $6million over three days and around $8million across the Christmas corridor — conditions that normally presage a fast decline. Instead it held or grew week over week, reached number one domestically on its eighteenth day of release, and ultimately posted a domestic total more than fourteen times its three-day opening weekend. Worldwide gross reached roughly $240million; Deadline described it as the highest-grossing R-rated romantic comedy worldwide since Bridget Jones's Baby(2016).
Trade coverage attributed the run to the Powell–Sweeney pairing, a TikTok marketing campaign that generated billions of hashtag views, and the revival of Natasha Bedingfield's 2004 single "Unwritten", used prominently in the film and over its end credits, which returned to streaming charts two decades after release. Gluck, who had joked before release that the film might be the last romantic comedy a major studio ever put in theatres, subsequently told CNBC that he would rather gamble on a mid- or low-budget film than a $200million one, citing the pleasure of outperforming low expectations.
In February 2025, Universal Pictures announced that Gluck would directOne Night Only (2026 film), an original high-concept romantic comedy from a screenplay by Travis Braun, with Gluck performing an uncredited rewrite. Set in a lightly fictionalised New York under a federal mandate banning sex outside marriage except for a single sanctioned night each year, the film stars Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner, with Maya Hawke, Molly Ringwald, LeVar Burton, King Princess and Julia Fox in support; Sweeney and Powell appear in photo cameos. Shot in New York from September 2025 on a budget of about $25million, it premiered at the SVA Theater on August 3, 2026 and opened nationwide on August 7.
Promoting the film, Gluck said test screenings led him to remove a substantial amount of nudity, arguing that contemporary audiences find explicit sex on screen distancing. He also coined the label "WOM-com" — for word-of-mouth comedy — to describe his approach after Anyone but You. Reviews were mixed, with several critics finding the dystopian premise tonally at odds with the romance; Variety's Guy Lodge called the result too unsettling to work as light comedy. The film has grossed approximately $33million worldwide to date, failing to replicate its predecessor's run.
Olive Bridge Entertainment
Gluck founded Olive Bridge Entertainment, named for the hamlet of Olivebridge, New York in upstate New York, where he spent time growing up and where he was married. Based in Los Angeles, the company holds first-look deals with Sony Pictures Entertainment and wiip, and has produced for Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Peacock, NBC, CBS and American Broadcasting Company.
Announced feature projects have included the buddy action comedy End of the World (Gluck directing, co-written with Chris Bremner), the science-fiction romance Move On, a hybrid animation/live-actionThe Aristocatsfor Walt Disney Picturesco-written with Keith Bunin, a Just Dance (video game series)adaptation for Ubisoft,and a 2026-announced adaptation of Lynn Painter's bestselling YA novel Fake Skating for Sony.
Music
Gluck has written songs for his own films, credited in some instances under the pseudonym "Freedom Jones". He served as a lyricist and composer on Annie, receiving a Golden Globe nomination for "Opportunity" alongside Sia and Greg Kurstin. He has described a deliberate fondness for placing earnest, unfashionable pop songs in his films — a strategy that paid off conspicuously with "Unwritten" in Anyone but You.
Style and reception
Critics have described Gluck's films as marked by rapid dialogue, a self-aware relationship to genre convention, prominent needle drops, and ensemble casts of established comic character actors surrounding young leads. Gluck has said that he likes to deconstruct genres and stories rather than execute them straightforwardly.
Gluck has argued publicly for mid-budget original theatrical comedy. He told CNBC in 2024 that studios have no inherent bias against romantic comedies and instead follow whatever has recently succeeded, and that the genre's migration to streaming had cost it the communal laughter of a cinema audience.
Personal life
Gluck is married to Trista Gladden; the couple were married in Olive Bridge, New York. They have two daughters and live in Los Angeles
