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Home Entertainment Center => Now Playing: Movies => Topic started by: Mac on August 02, 2016, 09:47:18 am


Title: Gender Flipping Remakes
Post by: Mac on August 02, 2016, 09:47:18 am
This is so disheartening. We've discussed remakes many times before. IMO, I find most remakes a complete waste.

Now, because of the Studio's always searching for the next avenue, apparently 2016 Ghostbusters gave studio's yet another reason to not become creative.
   
'Ghostbusters' to 'Splash': Why Gender-Flipping Is the New Gritty Reboot 31

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Yesterday afternoon, the industry trade papers reported that Disney was mounting a remake of Splash, a 1984 romcom starring a young Tom Hanks smitten with part-time mermaid Daryl Hannah. Remaking a popular favorite — that's not surprising. What was shocking, however, was the way Disney turned the tide on this announcement's reception by swapping its leads' genders, casting movie star/second-coming-of-Gene-Kelly Channing Tatum as the merman and hot-streak character actress Jillian Bell as the ordinary Hanks type. It could have easily been another soul-deadening studio plan to prop up a moldy premise Weekend at Bernie's-style and market it to a new generation. Instead, Splash 2.0 sounds like it has the potential to be an interesting prospect.

Fans attacked the idea of women busting ghosts — and that's the best, most inspired thing about this blockbuster

Conjuring a massive payday used to be as simple as applying a new layer of grit to a property that audiences know and love, and sitting back as the brand familiarity pays for itself. Maybe folks have gotten wise, or maybe the people making movies are just having an off year, but either way, it's not working as reliably as it used to. Think of the movie industry like a big children's soccer game, with everyone chasing after the highly lucrative ball regardless of what positions they've been assigned to play. The Gritty Reboot has now officially rolled out of bounds, and it's starting to look like the gender-flip movie is the trend du jour.


More... (http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/features/gender-flipping-movies-the-new-gritty-reboot-w432125)
Title: Re: Gender Flipping Remakes
Post by: Neumatic on August 02, 2016, 01:16:25 pm
I remember a couple years ago that they (who are 'they?") were thinking of Channing Tatum as the lead for a remake of Weird Science, with geeky girls.

I'm not against gender-swapped remakes or roles, I'm against BAD and needless remakes and reversals.  I admit I don't see the point in a Splash remake, but Channing Tatum seems to be rather clever casting.  Given that we're getting an Aquaman movie and Chloe Moretz as the Little Mermaid, there's totally room for a good-looking dumb beefcake merman movie.  Especially if it touches on stuff that those movies won't.
Title: Re: Gender Flipping Remakes
Post by: Mac on August 11, 2016, 09:36:12 am
All-Female 'Ocean's Eleven' Spinoff Looking to Avoid 'Ghostbusters'-Type Backlash

Warners will make 'Ocean's Ocho,' for around $70 million, according to sources, about $80 million less than the reported $150 million that 'Ghostbusters' cost.

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Put away that slime.

Though Warner Bros. has greenlit an all-female Ocean's Eleven spinoff just weeks after an all-female Ghostbusters became a major money loser for Sony, the comparisons should end there.

The most important distinction between the two films is the size of each project's budget. Sources say Warners will make the Ocean's reboot, which is currently titled Ocean's Ocho, for around $70 million, about $80 million less than Ghostbusters' reported budget of $150 million.

Within minutes of news breaking that Warners was moving forward with its new Ocean's incarnation -- headed up by Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett and Anne Hathaway and involving a heist at New York's Metropolitan Museum -- a predictable social media backlash began, with fans invoking the Ghostbusters disappointment. But a project insider insists that the Ocean's franchise is better poised for the gender swap than Ghostbusters given that it is a frothy heist film aimed at adults rather than fanboy-skewing action property with supernatural elements based on a movie that some now consider sacrosanct. After all, the 2001 Ocean's Eleven, with George Clooney at the center of the caper, was itself a remake of the similarly titled 1960 movie, starring Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack pals.

The new Ocean's cast — which also includes Helena Bonham Carter, Mindy Kaling, Rihanna and Awkwafina — also boasts a more celebrated group of actresses than Ghostbusters comedy quartet of Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon. Bullock, Blanchett, Hathaway and Carter have four Oscar wins and nine nominations among them and have all starred in box-office mega-hits, from Gravity (Bullock) to Cinderella (Blanchett) to Interstellar (Hathaway) to Alice in Wonderland (Carter). By contrast, although Ghostbusters' McCarthy is a box-office draw and has an Oscar nomination of her own as well for Bridesmaids, her appeal is still somewhat limited overseas. And outside of Bridesmaids, Wiig has not established herself as a box office draw, while Jones and McKinnon are relatively new to film.

Still, it remains to be seen whether Ocean's Ocho can capture the same box-office magic as the Clooney-led trio of films that ran from 2001-07, grossing $1.1 billion.

But the Warners-based Bullock is so invested in this next Ocean's outing that she has come on as an executive producer. Clooney, who was rumored to be producing Ocean's Ocho, is no longer producing, in a surprise twist. Instead, Steven Soderbergh, who directed the three Clooney Ocean's movies, will take the producing reins of the Gary Ross-helmed film by himself.

Although Ghostbusters failed to reignite that franchise and won't likely be sequelized with its current cast, many industry observers point to the budget — which soared because of the necessary special effects — as the cause for its profitability problems. Ghostbusters, on which Sony partnered with Village Roadshow, will result in a loss -- estimated to be in the $70 million range. Ironically, Village Roadshow is also co-financing and co-producing Ocean's Ocho with Warner Bros.

In the wake of Ghostbusters' lackluster performance -- just $181 million worldwide to date -- studios began reevaluating other all-female reboots, a group that also includes Fox's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. But Warners is confident that it won't find a Ghostbusters-esque box-office reception, particularly overseas (Ghostbusters' international haul is $63 million so far, representing a dismal 35 percent of its total). In fact, when it came to filling out its cast, instead of putting together a mixed-gender group of eight burglars, Warner Bros. president of creative development and worldwide production Greg Silverman was more focused on assembling an ethnically diverse group of women that reflects the global audience. And as the studio fills out the eighth slot of the ensemble, one thing is certain: Warners will not be casting a male actor.
Title: Re: Gender Flipping Remakes
Post by: Neumatic on August 11, 2016, 10:33:29 am
Well that's just f'ing smart economics.  Ghostbusters shouldn't have cost 3 figures to make, that's insane.

I'm annoyed that the lesson that the studios got from Ghostbusters is "rethink the all-female remake" and not "rethink the bad remake."  Bad remakes are bad movies, regardless of the gender of the cast.