As I sat at the viewing party for the season premiere of Tyler Perry’s “For Better or Worse,” I was struck by the obvious on-screen chemistry that best friends Tasha Smith and Michael Jai White share. Despite the fact that they verbally mauled each other half to death in their films together, their obviously affinity for one another — despite both being in fulfilling relationships with other people — is part of the reason the “Why Did I Get Married?” movie franchise became blockbuster urban hits and eventually spawned their sitcom on OWN.
But we’ve all seen at least one movie or television show where there was nothing between the male and female leads except air and dead space, which can greatly imperil a movie, because one of the ways to increase chances of success is to get the audience to care about the couple. Titanic, for example, did not become the all-time greatest box-office king because people want to watch a bunch of strangers drown.
Take a look at the worst celebrity on-screen couples: