Why All-Female Reboots Do Not Work [Storycraft]
Greetings fellow geeks, nerds, and movie buffs! My name is Matthew Kadish — author, evil genius, and scrumptious beefcake, here today to talk about what I’m sure will be a controversial topic, and that is the concept of the “All-Female Reboot.”
Before we dive in, I just want to make a quick disclaimer because I realize some people will jump on this issue guns blazing before I even get a chance to explain my position. So for those of you who may already be offended by this essay’s title, let me state up front:
- I am not saying female characters are bad.
- I am not saying female actresses cannot carry a movie.
- I am not saying audiences reject female-centric stories.
- I am not, in any way, shape, or form, trying to prove that women are inferior to men.
Thus, I am coming at this topic not from a position of misogyny, but strictly from the position of someone who wishes to analyze the concept and effects of rebooting genre-based stories by changing the genders of the main characters to be all female.
If you are at all familiar with my Storycraft series, then you’ll know that it is designed to deconstruct and analyze different forms of entertainment from a storytelling perspective. Storycraft is meant to look at movies, TV shows, and novels from the perspective of a storyteller in an attempt to figure out how and why audiences react the way they do to these forms of entertainment. They are not meant to promote or debate any particular political position or belief. They are strictly an academic analysis meant to educate writers and storytellers.
Because of this, Storycraft is NOT about:
- Hating on a particular movie, TV show, or book.
- Attacking the artist who produced that movie, TV show, or book.
- Attacking anyone who liked said movie, TV show, or book.
- Convincing anyone NOT to like a specific movie, TV show, or book.
My goal with Storycraft is simply to take an analytical look at a piece of entertainment and break it down based on established and proven theories about how to properly tell a story, for the purposes of educating those who wish to learn the art of storytelling. In essence, Storycraft is about the concepts behind telling stories effectively — nothing else. This is not meant to be a review or a political statement, simply an in-depth narrative analysis based in professional standards of storytelling.
Of course, you’re free to disagree with my analysis of different works. I don’t claim to be an authority on anything. But if you feel I’m wrong about something, feel free to debate me about it in the comments or on Twitter (@MatthewKadish), so long as you remain respectful. I always welcome feedback!
Okay, now that the disclaimer is out of the way, let’s get to the nitty gritty of what this analysis of all-female reboots is about…
What Is A Reboot?
When it comes to cinema, a “reboot” is defined as the refreshing of a previous narrative by making a new start or creating a new version. This is simply the concept of taking a familiar story, ignoring all that came before it, and telling it in a different or updated way.
The very first instance of a reboot from Hollywood came in the form of the Tarzan franchise, based on the books by author Edgar Rice Burroughs. The earliest Tarzan films were produced by MGM, which made twelve films based on the popular character from 1932 to 1948. These films all starred the same actor in the titular role and were all made in the same vein — with the character of Tarzan portrayed as a noble-savage who spoke in broken English. Though this “Me Tarzan, you Jane,” version of the character became the one that entered into popular culture, it was a huge divergence from the cultured aristocrat version of the character from Burrough’s novels.
Eventually, MGM’s option on the character ran out, and in the 1950s producer Sy Weintraub bought the film rights. After almost 2 decades of MGM’s version of Tarzan, Sy Weintraub wanted to take the character in a new direction instead of continuing with the version audiences had grown tired of. Weintraub wanted to reclaim a more mature audience and take the Tarzan character back to its roots, drawing more heavily on the source material from Burrough’s novels. He re-cast the main role of Tarzan, shot the Tarzan films on location rather than in a studio, and made the movies in color instead of black and white. Weintraub eventually produced eight Tarzan films and a television series based on the character.
Since Weintraub’s time, Hollywood has come to adopt the concept of “reboots” as a solid business strategy. After all, a great deal of investment is made by movie studios into developing successful film franchises. It makes sense that should audiences grow tired of a particular franchise, a studio would want to take a proven successful property and refresh it in order to continue to profit from it. This strategy has been used to great effect by franchises such as James Bond, Star Trek, and Batman.
And though some cinemaphiles may bemoan the “reboot” strategy, by-and-large reboots are not bad things. They not only are able to update a beloved character or narrative for modern audiences, but reboots are also able to fix flaws and shortcomings from previous versions, just as Weintraub did when he course-corrected the character of Tarzan to be closer to the version Burrough’s had originally envisioned.
However, it is this notion of “fixing” previous incarnations of a film or franchise that brings us to the big problem with the concept of the “all-female reboot.”
The Rise Of The All-Female Reboot
The rise of modern feminism in American culture has been a controversial one. However, the feminist movement in Hollywood has not necessarily been a bad thing. It has forced a traditionally male-dominated industry to give greater opportunities to women, who have been historically exploited and taken advantage of by it. Through modern feminism, we’ve seen certain glass ceilings shattered in the movie business, with women rising to important positions such as running studios and directing/producing films.
As women attained positions of power in the film industry, they naturally wanted to pave the way for others to enjoy the type of success they have. This means promoting forms of entertainment meant to empower females who work in the industry and inspire the women who consume this entertainment. It is also meant to change the hearts and minds of society so as to make people more accepting of the concept of strong, powerful, independent women.
By and large, this strategy has worked. The more people are exposed to an idea, the more accepting they become of it. More women directors and producers have risen to prominence because of these efforts. Female characters have been given increased focus in films and TV. Studios have promoted women to important positions of power. And with this has come more and more films geared not only toward female audiences, but also based around female characters and actresses.
Judging from the box office performance of these types of female-driven films, audiences have widely accepted them. One need only look at successes like Pitch Perfect, Bad Moms, Kill Bill, The Hunger Games, The Arrival, Erin Brockovich, Hidden Figures, Thelma & Louise, Bridesmaids, and a host of other female-driven narratives to see that audiences do not reject such movies. In fact, many of these films and characters are quite celebrated by both men AND women.
But a trend began not too long ago that has led to the concept of an all-female reboot. It was born of this desire to advance feminism and female empowerment through the take-over of historically male-driven genre films and franchises in an effort to not only encourage women to become fans of the genre in question, but also to force the male audiences to accept a greater female-presence in these genres beyond that of “love interest” or “sidekick”.
It’s a noble notion, and one feminists in Hollywood who are in positions of power and authority have latched onto. And it was doubled-down on with the making of Ghostbusters: Answer The Call, the 2016 reboot of the beloved Ghostbusters franchise. In this instance, Amy Pascal — the head of Sony Motion Pictures Group — led the charge, along with filmmaker Paul Feig, to not only reboot this traditionally successful franchise, but to swap the genders of the four main characters of the original films to all new female characters.
And this trend is marching forward with numerous movies that previously had an all-male leading cast in their original incarnations now being gender-swapped to star all women. These include Ocean’s Eight (a soft-reboot of the Ocean’s Eleven films), Lord of the Flies, The Expendabelles (a reboot of the action series The Expendables), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Rocketeer, and perhaps the most high-profile franchise to get the all-girl make-over, Terminator.
Movies are not the only forms of entertainment pushing this “Female First” reboot strategy. TV shows and comic books are doing it as well. The shows Kung Fu and The Great American Hero are being remade with females in the lead. And famously, both Thor and Iron Man have been recast as women in the comics.
But so far, despite the noble intentions behind these changes, every instance of an all-female reboot of genre films has been met with extreme audience backlash and box-office disappointment. This has so far been dismissed by those in charge in Hollywood as typical “misogyny” and “bigotry” on behalf of the moviegoing audience, the very things these efforts are meant to combat and defeat. However, there is a deeper reason as to why audiences reject these reboots of popular entertainment, and why ultimately, these reboots will fail to advance the feminist agenda.
The Problem With All-Female Reboots
The feminist thinking behind all-female reboots is a simple one: If audiences accept movies with all-male casts, why shouldn’t movies with all-female casts be accepted as well?
After all, the mission behind this is a drive toward equality. Women should be just as accepted as men are in everything — including entertainment media. And this comes back to the concept of a reboot “fixing” a flaw in the previous incarnation of the story. To feminists, the idea that a movie previously only starred men is a flaw that needs to be corrected. The old character(s) need to be dismissed to advance the new. Men need to be replaced by women in order to show fans of the material that it’s okay to accept women being in charge of a beloved piece of art and entertainment.
However, the issue with the “all-female reboot” is not so much one of intolerance, misogyny, bigotry, close-mindedness, prejudice, or conservatism in regards to the material. Audiences have proven that they will not only accept films starring female main characters or an all-female cast, but that those types of female-led films can have huge success and loyal fanbases, many of which consist of a great deal of men. Therefore, this notion that the “problem” of the all-female reboot lies in the audience is a false one.
The real problem is that the artists behind the reboot are trying to dictate to the audience what they should like, rather than giving the audience something they want.
This is the real reason why all-female reboots have fallen flat thus far. It is not because the audience holds some type of inherent prejudice against women. It is because those in charge of the reboots in question are trying to force audiences to accept something that is completely different from the material they already have an emotional attachment to or are familiar and comfortable with.
But there are a few other issues in addition to this that must be addressed to understand the crux of the problem here…
The Gender Gap Myth
The common thinking in Hollywood is that movies have been unequally skewed to the male demographic, and that men make up the bulk of the moviegoing audience. Thus, there is a “gender gap” in cinema attendance, which some attribute to the vast majority of major movies being made for men, by men. Though this concept isn’t entirely the reason behind the push for more female-centric cinematic fare, it’s a big justification for it.
However, if we take a moment to look at some actual data, we can see that the concept of a “gender gap” among moviegoing audiences is actually false. According to the MPAA, which gets its data from comscore PostTrak, approximately 263.2 million people went to the movies in 2017 between the United States and Canada. Of that number, 43 million were considered to be “frequent moviegoers”, which means they went to the cinemas once a month or more.
Of those who went to the movies at least once in a year, the MPAA reports that the gender share of moviegoers was effectively a 50/50 split between men and women, meaning essentially that an equal number of men and women went to the movies in 2017. Though this split fluctuates slightly from year to year, audience attendance by gender typically stays in the 50/50 range, with it tending to skew in favor of females when it does, in fact, fluctuate. (And despite the movies released in cinema not being any more or less female-centric in previous years.)
This means that of the 43 million frequent moviegoers in the US and Canada, approximately 21.5 million of them are men, and 21.5 million of them are women. I suppose this breakdown makes sense due to the fact that movies are the primary “date” activity of couples, so men and women often go to the movies in pairs.
So in terms of audience demographics, according to the MPAA and comscore PostTrak, there is no significant gender gap in moviegoing attendance. Though moviegoing audiences are commonly thought to be majority male, and that women are not as frequent moviegoers as men due to movies not being tailored to them, the fact is that both genders not only equally enjoy going to the movies, but they also attend movies equally as well.
Thus, the concept that one gender’s audience needs to be catered to over another is a fallacy, as both men and women go to the movies in almost equal numbers (and if there is a variation, it’s small enough to be statistically insignificant). With Hollywood’s current slate of movies — which is often seen as being overwhelmingly male and overwhelmingly “white” — women are still turning out for them, and it is unlikely that an increased production of films designed to appeal to females would attract any more to the cinema than are already going.
Therefore, it can be argued that the supposed “gender gap” used to justify the all-female reboot is a misperception. Even if it is true that Hollywood produces more movies geared toward male audiences, this does not affect the female turn-out for those films in the overall scheme of things.
However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t differences in how men and women consume movies, or which films they prefer to attend in theaters. But when we start to dive down into the nitty-gritty of what movies are made and released, we can begin to see why there is such a focus on the male demographic in the movie industry…
Gender-Based Genre Preferences
One of the big factors in why Hollywood has typically catered to men is as simple as the fact that men tend to enjoy a wider variety of genres than women typically do. In a study published in the US National Library of Medicine that investigated the movie-genre preferences of the different genders, it was found that men strongly preferred the following genres of film over women:
- Action
- Adventure
- Erotic
- Fantasy
- Horror
- Mystery
- Science Fiction
- War
- Western
Also in the study, six genres of film were found to be equally popular among men and women, those being:
- Animation
- Comedy
- Crime
- Heimat (Lifestyle)
- History
- Thriller
Only two genres were found to be preferred by women over men, and those were:
- Drama
- Romance
When the data from the study was combined, the order of popularity of the 17 genres averaged across the two genders broke down like this:
- Comedy
- Thriller
- Crime
- Adventure
- Action
- Animation
- Romance
- Drama
- Fantasy
- Science-Fiction
- Horror
- History
- Mystery
- War
- Erotic
- Western
- Heimat (Lifestyle)
When we dive down further into these results, website Statista reports the following in terms of the gender preference of certain film genres:
- Drama films are preferred 80% by women to 69% by men.
- Romance films are preferred 37% by women to 16% by men.
- Comedy is preferred by 77% of women and 74% of men.
- Action films are preferred by 73% of men and only 62% of women.
- Science Fiction films are preferred by 54% of men, and only 43% of women.
Once more, according to Statista, the top 7 most popular movie genres in North America measured from 1995 to 2018 break down like this:
- Adventure
- Action
- Drama
- Comedy
- Thriller
- Horror
- Romantic Comedy
Of those top 7 genres, only Drama and Romantic Comedy is preferred by women over men. Comedy and Thrillers are equally preferred, and Adventure, Action, and Horror are preferred by men over women. The key difference here is that Adventure films and Action films — both heavily preferred by men — account for the most box office in the timeframe of the survey, combining to the tune of $101.3 billion dollars over the course of 23 years. By contrast, the two genres most heavily frequented by women — Drama and Comedy — only add up to $67.62 billion.
So the production of genre-based films can essentially be boiled down to simple dollars and cents. The reason more male-preferred genre films are produced by Hollywood isn’t due to sexism or the ignoring of the female demographic. It’s simply that those genres make the most money. And it isn’t as though these genres don’t appeal to women either, they just don’t appeal to as many women as they appeal to men.
Why The Different Movie Preferences Between Genders?
Going back to the US National Library of Medicine study, a number of gender-preferences were addressed that help to explain the differences between the type of entertainment men prefer to consume over that of women. In a reference in the study, it is revealed that women tend to prefer movies or genres centering on social relationships, while men prefer movies or genres centering on aggressive conflicts.
Even more interesting is that when it comes to the main character of a film, audiences prefer to identify with same-sex protagonists. An analysis of the content showed that male protagonists dominate in genres preferred by men (action, adventure, sci-fi, etc.) whereas female protagonists dominated in genres that were preferred by women (drama, romance, etc.)
The study also took into account biological differences, siting that due to testosterone being the primary hormone in men and attributed to sex drive and dominant behavior as the reason why men preferred movies featuring a stronger emphasis on competition and sex. Women, in contrast, have more of the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin, which are associated to pair bonding and feelings of love, which is attributed to the more empathetic nature of females. This emphasis on a different hormone than men explains why women are more interested in films that evoke strong emotions, such as drama, romance, and comedy.
Then there’s an evolutionary aspect to genre preferences. Women prefer media that deals with the choice of mates, partner loyalty, loss of a loved one, family, and children. Men are more likely to be drawn to media that deals with the protection of loved ones, rivalry, status, power, and the acquisition of material wealth. It is not by coincidence that these preferences tend to reflect traditional societal roles for each gender. It’s also important to note that the study points to the concept of “social learning theory” that gives credence to the idea that men and women tend to gravitate to gender-role congruent media due to societal upbringing.
The conclusions reached in the study showed that women are, on average, more strongly interested in movies about people and relationships than men, which explains why the genres of drama and romance are so popular among women. In contrast, the data showed that men are, on average, more strongly interested in things (such as technical equipment, vehicles, and weaponry) than women, explaining their preference for science fiction movies. The implication here is that it could be very difficult to attract more women to science fiction and war movies, or to attract more men to love and romantic films, due to their natural interests running counter to the tropes of those genres.
So there is now scientific proof that gender-based preferences do exist when it comes to the consumption of media, and there are specific biological and societal factors behind these differences. Now that this is clearly established, let’s get into the reasons why all-female reboots not only don’t work, but aren’t a good idea to begin with…
Issue 1: Genre Mismatch
The recent trend with all-female reboots has been to take popular films in genres heavily preferred by men and try to attract more women to them. However, as we’ve established, the genres in question aren’t popular with women not due to a lack of representation, but due to a lack of genre preference.
Take Ghostbusters: Answer The Call for example. The primary mistake with the creation of that reboot was thinking the original Ghostbusters was a comedy. As established before, comedies tend to be equally popular among men and women, with a slight skew toward women, so the idea of swapping out a male cast with a female cast shouldn’t have been an issue.
But the original Ghostbusters, whose fanbase the reboot was meant to tap back into, was NOT actually a comedy. Though the film had comedic elements to it, it was in fact a sci-fi movie with horror elements. The focus on the original Ghostbusters was not on making the audience laugh, it was actually more of an adventure film showcasing a group of underdogs going up against a supernatural threat.
From the statistics sited previously, the genres of adventure, science fiction, and horror are all genres more heavily preferred by men over women. In fact, a look at Ghostbusters fans from Facebook’s audience insights metrics shows that 51% of Ghostbusters fans are male. And while Facebook isn’t the most accurate metric by which to measure a fanbase, it’s clear that the target audience for the movie was men, age 18–44, with an emphasis on the 25–34 age group, which is the demographic that grew up watching The Real Ghostbusters cartoon franchise. The 25–34 age group is what made Ghostbusters the mega-franchise it developed into, and if we look at the gender breakdown for that age group, it’s 50% men and 44% women. This is actually very close to the statistic we looked at earlier for science fiction films where the sci-fi genre was preferred by 54% of men and 43% of women.
So the big mistake made by Sony when it came to the Ghostbusters reboot essentially came down to misidentifying the genre that the property belonged to. While comedies are more neutral in gender preference, with a slight majority of women preferring them over men, science fiction movies are more skewed toward men, with only 43% of women expressing interest in the genre. Thus, Ghostbusters: Answer The Call was mismatched to the actual audience it was meant to appeal to. The filmmakers were treating it as a comedy, while the audience was expecting a science fiction film similar to the original.
Issue 2: Gender Exclusion
I previously mentioned that audiences tend to more strongly identify with same-sex characters in films, thus the reason why main characters in male-preferred genres tend to be men and the main characters in female-preferred genres tend to be women. But it’s also important to point out that mixed-gender films tend to have a broader appeal across the sexes. Movies that are male-oriented will often try to add a love story into the narrative in an attempt to appeal to the female members of the audience, for example.
This mixed-gender inclusive strategy is also typically seen in a movie’s marketing materials. We often see male and female characters on a movie’s poster, for example. And when not banking on a specific actor’s star power, the marketing is banking on their sex appeal. Leading women in films tend to be attractive to male audiences, and leading men tend to be attractive to female audiences. In marketing materials that do not feature a mixed gender couple, we most often see a single actor or actress on the poster.
Marketing materials, by their very nature, are meant to quickly communicate to audiences what a movie is about and whether or not it appeals to them. If you look at examples of film marketing that skew to all-male or all-female images, these tend to communicate certain things. Most marketing material that contain all-male characters tend to be for action, adventure, sci-fi, or comedy films. Most marketing material with all-female characters tend to be for drama, romance, romantic comedy, or comedy films, usually geared toward women. This is the very basis of the concept behind a “chick flick.” The marketing material reflects the notion that the film is specifically intended for female preferences.
When we see a poster for a movie like Girls Trip, one knows exactly what it is and who it is meant for. Just like when one sees a poster for The Expendables, it’s obvious who the intended audience is. If we look at successful all-female posters that appeal to men, it’s either obvious that the film is a comedy, or the women on the poster are attractive enough to appeal to a man’s sex drive.
Where this becomes an issue in regards to gender-swapped reboots is that an audience that is already familiar with a film property and the characters associated with it are now being told they are no longer the audience the film is meant to appeal to. Once a majority male audience has already self-identified with male characters within a franchise, it feels as though the reboot is effectively telling them to “stay away” because the film doesn’t want them as part of its audience.
I believe this was a big issue with both the reboots of Ghostbusters and Oceans 8. Both properties were coming from a place of having all-male main characters that audiences had come to like and accept, and now those characters were completely gone and replaced to an extreme, evidenced by all marketing materials. Male audiences didn’t reject these films because they hate women, they rejected these films because they felt as though the films had rejected them first. If their beloved characters were no longer a part of the franchise, and the marketing material was telling them men were being specifically excluded from the film, what appeal was left for them beyond being fans of the actresses involved or brand loyalty?
The elimination of all male characters from the marketing materials of all-female reboots communicates certain things very clearly to the pre-established audience of the property it is rebooting. Firstly, it’s communicating that men are excluded from the film. Secondly, it’s communicating that the characters the audience already identifies with have no part in the film or have been radically changed to the point of being unrecognizable. And finally, it’s communicating that it wants a different audience from the one that’s already there.
When it comes to a reboot such as Oceans 8, there are essentially no male characters to speak of. The almost complete exclusion of men from the main cast can be alienating for male audience members because there is a lack of characters for them to identify with. Part of the appeal of the films Oceans 11, Oceans 12, and Oceans 13 was that the actors and the characters were so cool and hip, that they inspired men to want to emulate them and identify with them while coming off as sex symbols for the female part of the audience for the very same reason. This was entirely lacking in Oceans 8, where the cast and the narrative was geared entirely to be role models for women without any appeal whatsoever for men. Had Oceans 8 bothered to include a few male characters in its core ensemble, there would have been characters easier for the male segment of the audience to latch onto and men wouldn’t have felt excluded from the narrative. Instead, there was this hostile feeling throughout the film that there were “no boys allowed” in the audience.
Issue 3: Gender Vilification
The final issue of the all-female reboot has been that the male audience that hasn’t been discouraged from seeing these movies — either through the genre mismatching or the gender excluding — are often turned off from the message by the film’s hostility toward them. A common mistake by those who are trying to passionately promote their pro-female beliefs is that women can only be propped up at the expense of men as opposed to alongside them.
The initial incarnation of feminism was to promote equality of the sexes, but modern interpretations of the movement seem to be geared toward inequality with women being promoted while men are being oppressed, effectively inverting the inequality feminism rose up to fix. It’s simple human nature that people don’t like being ridiculed or criticized, especially for something they have no control over, such as their race or gender. So when a film that is meant to promote female empowerment does so at the expense of men, it’s natural for those men to become defensive and reject the film and its message.
Once again, we need look no further than Ghostbusters: Answer The Call for a perfect example of this issue at play. In the reboot of Ghostbusters, every single male character fell into the category of buffoon, jerk, or villain. There was not a single realistic, positive, or flattering representation of men anywhere in the movie. And though absurdist comedies like Ghostbusters: Answer The Call often have over-the-top characters and unflattering representations of all demographics, the fact that the film was already suffering from genre mismatch and gender exclusion served to make this not a trope of the comedy genre, but a statement to the audience of what it thought of the male gender. (This wasn’t helped by the director and cast’s direct attacks against male audiences during the promotional phase of the film’s marketing, either.)
The original Ghostbusters had two very realistic and well-written female characters in it — that of Dana Barret and Janine Melnitz. The only absurdist caricature it had within its narrative came in the form of the character of Louis Tully, who was more of a reflection of a “nerd” than he was a reflection of his gender. But the point here is that the female characters were played straight and treated with respect. They were real characters the audience could connect with. Even Louis Tully, as over-the-top as he was, had endearing and humanizing aspects to him that made him a favorite of the audience.
Ghostbusters: Answer The Call had none of these elements. The narrative was more focused on delivering jokes and slapstick comedy than it was with characterization. There were no realistic characters — male or female — in the entire film. All the characters were overblown caricatures, essentially a cast full of Louis Tullys without any of his endearing characteristics. Instead, we had female characters who were meant to be funny and male characters who were meant to be mocked. Audiences don’t like to feel attacked or insulted. In this case, Ghostbusters did both.
When you combine the three issues of genre mismatching, gender exclusion, and gender vilification, it is easy to see why audiences are hesitant to accept all-female reboots.
Conclusion
The question the people behind a reboot who wish to effect societal change must ask themselves is: Which is more important — financial success or successful messaging? Ideally, the answer would be that both are equally important, because the more financially successful a film is, the stronger its message will be received and the more that message will be communicated. But the answer to this question in recent years has been that the message is more important than the movie, and the movie often suffers as a result.
The great irony with the push to force greater acceptance of female roles in films is that the strategy with which they attempt to do so is to eliminate diversity in the audience. These films are set up to appeal exclusively to women at the expense of men, effectively telling the male segment of the film’s audience to stay away. And if the very audience whose mind and opinions are meant to be changed never bother to be exposed to one’s message, what has been accomplished? The answer is that those behind the message have succeeded in destroying the financial viability of their rebooted franchise, alienated the people they’re supposed to be reaching out to, and effectively accomplishing nothing of substance for society. In the end, all they succeed in doing is preaching to the choir while ruining a piece of art for a devoted fanbase.
The key to making a successful reboot is to give the already established audience more of what they love, while also updating the property to appeal to new audiences in a way that doesn’t alienate the old. A great example of this is Christopher Nolan’s Batman reboot. Nolan took everything fans loved about the comic books and moved away from the campy interpretation of the previous films to craft a gritty, realistic take on the character that not only appealed to the Batman fanbase, but modern audiences as well, thus resulting in a massively successful reboot that brought in billions of dollars.
The great misnomer when it comes to reboots is that in order to bring in a bigger audience, the reboot has to appeal to a different audience from the original one it had. This is simply not the case, and in fact, appealing to a different audience is actually a recipe for failure, because there is a reason the original film had the audience it did. Rather than focusing on something different, successful reboots focus on attracting more of the same. If a film’s audience skews toward men, then a reboot should focus on appealing to MORE men. If a film’s audience appealed to the 25–39 age demographic, then the reboot should appeal to MORE people of that age. Though it is fine to attract a different audience from the original, this should never be done at the expense of what’s already there. By casting a wider net and designing a reboot to appeal to modern audiences of the same demographic, a reboot can effectively bring in a larger audience, even if that audience isn’t very diverse.
There’s also the issue of forcing an audience to accept something it doesn’t want. The old adage “The Customer Is Always Right” applies to filmmaking as well. Hollywood can’t dictate to audiences what they want to see. Every time it’s tried to do this, audience have soundly rejected it. And the same is true for messaging within movies. If a film is more concerned with forcing an audience to accept what amounts to a political message rather than entertaining an audience, that message will fall on deaf ears and ultimately fail to be heard. Gradual change is always far more effective than sudden and forced change. People’s ideas and beliefs don’t alter overnight. The metaphor of cooking the frog in the pot of water slowly rather than tossing it into a boiling pot still applies.
Reboots where the intention is to push a message of acceptance of women and their roles should be done with care. They should be inclusive and invite the audience they are trying to communicate to (in this case, men) in to see them. They should not vilify their audience (again, men) as a way to prop up their message. And they should take a gradual approach toward the idea rather than trying to leap to the end goal (mixed-gender films as opposed to all-female casts). Most of all, the reboot should not disregard everything the audience loved about the original. It should strive to appeal to the existing audience while simultaneously appealing to a broader audience. By doing this, any message within the film will be effectively communicated and find acceptance among those it’s meant to reach.
One can never force change. Only encourage it. And that is why the current strategy of the “all-female reboot” hasn’t worked. Nor will it ever work, if Hollywood insists on continuing to do what it’s been doing.
Check Out My Other Articles
If you liked this article, please be sure to check out some of my other work.
