There have been a lot of YA romances that have captured audiences’ hearts over the last decade. However, none have arguably been as popular or as everlasting as the After saga of films. Based on the book series by Anna Todd, After has had three sequels and was supposed to have ended this year’s After Ever Happy. However, before that film’s release the franchise star Hero Fiennes Tiffin announced that there was going to be a fifth film to close out the series, After Everything. The other surprising news was it was already filmed. Now ahead of After Everything’s release in 2023, the new final film has received its first teaser trailer.
The short 35-second trailer doesn’t reveal much about the film’s plot, but it teases how Tiffin’s Hardin is dealing with the fallout of his on-and-off relationship with Josephine Langford’s Tessa. Spoiler alert, Hardin’s not taking it well. He’s confiding in his parents that he’s struggling to write and everything he does just goes back to his feelings for Tessa. He can’t get past the idea of not being with her. The last we see of Hardin, he’s booking a one-way flight straight toward the love of his life.
Say what you will about the After series, and its arguable promotion of an abusive relationship, this has been one of the most successful franchises in its genre, particularly in the pandemic era. The first film made $69 million worldwide before its sequel After We Collided made $47 million during the pandemic in 2020. Its latter two films, After We Fell and After Ever Happy, both received hybrid releases, but they still managed to make $21 million and $19 million worldwide respectively. Also, these are pretty cheap films to make, so it’s a no-brainer why Voltage Pictures would want to continue this franchise. Let’s just hope the writing this time around is better than the last couple films because the amount of melodrama and needless subplots crammed into this saga would make even the most die-hard hopeless romantics roll their eyes at times. However, with that said, Langford shine’s in this franchise and Tiffin does his best with the repetitive material he’s given.
There’s no exact release date for the film yet or any word if it will stick to its hybrid release strategy that the franchise has gone down of late, but After Everything is ending this romantic saga in 2023. Hopefully on a high note. While YA fans anxiously wait for this steamy conclusion, you can watch the new teaser down below. If you’re not caught up on the series, After Ever Happy is streaming on Netflix on December 25 just in time for Christmas.
