I recently stumbled across a comment online that best sums up the reason why all-female led reboots crash and burn: “Hollywood focuses so much on creating strong FEMALE characters rather than STRONG female characters.”
…He’s not alone in this sentiment, as recent all-female reboots of historically popular films such as Ghostbusters, Charlie’s Angels, Terminator, and Ocean’s Eleven have not been received well, to put it lightly. Why have audiences rejected these female remakes of classic stories? Is it because of misogynistic audiences, like many of the creators of these films point to as the reason for their project’s failure, or is it the fault of lazy writing, unoriginality, and an ultimate lack of respect for the complexity of women?
Truth be told, the answer is simple – they’re just not good films. They rely on representation over story, and when they bomb at the box office, blame audiences for refusing to support women. When Elizabeth Banks’ recent iteration of Charlie’s Angels tanked at the box office, Banks literally blamed men for the commercial failure of her film. This, of course, is in reference to a film that’s a reboot of an already all-female film. A film that was incredibly successful in 2000, generating $264 million at the box office. Paul Feig also attributed the flop of the all-female Ghostbusters reboot to “racists and sexist” trolls. Read more…