Not Your Romeo & Juliet to Release to DVD and Streaming

June 2, 2023

The Asbury University School of Media Communication original feature film Not Your Romeo & Juliet will be released on June 1, 2023, via DVD and streaming. Following a premiere screening at the Kentucky Theatre in Lexington on April 6, the DVD will be available for purchase on Amazon, and the digital version can be rented or purchased on the streaming service Vudu. Pre-order is currently available on both platforms.    

Not Your Romeo & Juliet is distributed by Bridgestone Multimedia Group and has received a PG rating from the Motion Picture Association of America. It follows romance column author Micki, who thinks she has love all figured out — until a competing, anti-romance column rivals hers. It’s love and war as Micki is determined to take down “Not Your Romeo” even if it destroys them both. Directed by Matthew Kistenmacher, the film stars Ashley Butler and Ben Jeffers, supported by Diandra Sallee Cahall, Jordan Bryant, Catherine Gaffney, and Tim X Davis. 

Writer Sean Gaffney says he found inspiration for the story in many places, including 1 Corinthians 13 and the personal experience of a family member.  

“The idea came to me while watching Asbury Theatre’s production of ‘The Voice of the Prairie,’” said Gaffney, who teaches screenwriting at Asbury. “There was a character with a marvelous energy – and I wondered what it would look like to have a character like that on a modern campus. I combined that character idea with a true story from my brother and his wife. When they were dating, they got into a huge fight and stopped speaking to each other; their best friends had to pretend to like each other to ‘trick’ my brother and his girlfriend back together.” In real life, he says, their best friends also fell in love. 

Filmed in Wilmore in the summer of 2022, the project was staffed almost entirely by Asbury students, professors, and alumni. Asbury’s campus provided most of the film’s shooting locations, and both students and alumni are featured in the soundtrack. 

More information about Not Your Romeo & Juliet can be found at https://linktr.ee/notyourromeomovie.