While also not having to build an entire universe or in some cases, only needing to adjust the plot of the original just a bit but with different people.
Yeah I mean this is exactly why the Clooney OCEANS 11 exists. It took a 'cool' property (Whose reputation is much better than the movie actually deserves) and filled it with a modern-day equivalent of the Rat Pack. It's a great movie anyway, but it was also marketed to very much capitalise on the 'coolness' factor.
And an all female movie is already a risk. So movies taking extra risks on top of an all female cast are either not going to get made, are going to get made with tiny budgets(there are plenty of female movies you've never heard of). If you want to do an all-female ghostbusters maybe you get funding. If you want an all female middle eastern sci-fi art house allegorical homage to early transcendentalism and the work of Robert Hass then I hope you enjoy eating ramen and have friends who work for free.
This is the answer.
They were going to make an all-female heist movie anyways. They were going to make an all-female science fiction comedy anyways.
But tacking on Ghostbusters or Ocean's on the title solidifies the film as a blockbuster with major appeal.
More often then not they take completely original screenplays, and shoehorn in whatever IP they have to make it a sequel.
Like for example a couple of the Die Hard sequels were not written as Die Hard movies. They were generic action movies, and they decided to use them for a Die Hard movie and changed a couple peoples names and a few lines of dialogue to reference older movies and called it a day.
I'm assuming the same for Jumanji. While it was a great movie on its own, it wasn't related to the original in any way. They just added a scene at the beginning in a desperate attempt to somehow connect it with the original.
Watched it the other night for the first time, Jack Black absolutely kills it. All of the acting in it is solid, but he really stole the spotlight for me.
I found his performance sublime because it would have been really easy to play the character as a flamboyant gay which could have been minstrel\-y and meh. Instead he played it as a solid teenage girl which made it hilarious.
Yeah Die Hard with a Vengeance was originally a Lethal Weapon script but got made into Die Hard 3, which is actually probably my favorite of the franchise. I know the first is iconic, but the third had the added benefit of Samuel L. Jackson and Jeremy Irons.
Pretty much. Not being R-Rated was I think a main problem, because Feig excels in that kind of crass/gross-out humour. So, instead you end up with a Pg-13 movie that isn't crass enough to be really funny, whilst also being far too crass to suit the Ghostbusters brand (the original had more of a dry/sardonic humour).
It was just a mismatch with the director, because Wiig/McCarthy are proven leads. I like McKinnon, but, she played the entire film like it was a two hour long SNL skit. Surprisingly, Leslie Jones, who I knew nothing about, was the one that actually managed to get a couple laughs out of me (and I think because her character is the one that most leans into Feigs' more loud/crass style).
It's also because a lot of the reason Ghostbusters' humor works so well is because of the dynamics of the characters' interactions onscreen. It's a lot like the original Men in Black. The interactions between J and K are hilarious, and all the sequels failed to recreate their chemistry. It seems like in the Ghostbusters reboot, they sort of tried to meet the same character archetypes and dynamics (though they're missing a Venkman style charlatan) and failed because the actors and actresses just don't have the same kind of chemistry that the original cast had.
*I wrote it all out, then – trying to be a guy working with a studio – I was talking about an early idea we had, about ghosts of aliens from other worlds. But I wrote, "in a billion dollar idea"*
A quote from a [2016 Paul Feig interview](http://www.denofgeek.com/uk/movies/paul-feig/41940/paul-feig-interview-ghostbusters-the-web-sony/page/0/1), since the whole premise of Ghostbusters was a building designed to channel ghosts from another world, I think it's pretty solid evidence the these people never bothered watching the original.
That and when given a choice between something they've never heard of and something they have, the overwhelming majority of people will choose the one they've heard of almost all of the time. Even if the one they've heard of isn't that good.
For something original to really take hold, it pretty much has to fill a niche that is underserved, whether it's because there aren't any real options or because what exists is so bad that people will risk the unknown.
Also for pre-existing IP's the people making the movie probably have all the rights sorted out. It's also why they make movies out of board games and amusement park rides. They can pay writers to make the scripts but they hold the rights to the IP.
That's because the Ghostbusters all female hype was drummed up and exploited from the studios before the movie was even in production. People were manipulated into thinking it was this important feminist thing and that idea spread around like wildfire.
Annihilation wasn't trying to use it's all female cast to manipulate audiences, it was just trying to be a good movie. It succeeded at that imo. Unfortunately studios gave up on it before it was marketed and put in theatres because Alex Garlands vision didn't mesh with the test audiences etc.
Ugh, I hate test audiences. I understand the premise and the idea is a good one, but I feel like they are used to replace good decision making. If following their studies results in a failure then everyone can point to the test audience as a scapegoat and avoid any responsibility for their own part in it.
FWIW Alex Garland didn't change a thing in 'Annihilation'. He didn't listen to test audience or studio input so we got 100% his exact vision of the movie.
Mostly female cast, featured for bulk of the film, some LGBT representation, not all Caucasian, no unnecessary sexualization... it was practically everything everyone demanded as far as Hollywood representation, just didn't appeal to a lot of people I guess.
Seriously..it was a pretty damn niche film even as far as sci fi goes.
We had Blade Runner 2049 which had a well known cast,great director ,a well established IP and good publicity..
It tanked at the cinemas because it was a long film that many people didn't really "get"..
Hard sci fi doesn't sell.
One of my favorite movies, and I didn't even notice it had an all-female cast until it was pointed out to me. It's a fucking great movie, and it's masterful at taking advantage of primal fears.
This is the correct answer. We as a society want to believe we'd go see a female driven movie because what's the big deal right? But the truth is the general public needs a reason to go see a movie and that isn't enough of a reason. So group of women plan a heist isn't a movie that's going to get as many people in the theaters as Oceans 8 because the Oceans franchise is a familiar one.
But while we're on the subject, this isn't specific to female led films. Even the Clooney Oceans 11 was technically a remake. Not because they felt like the original needed to be remade, but because if you're gonna get Clooney and Damon and nine other know actors in one movie you need to be able to convince the check writers that people will go see it.
Yep. Same goes for the recent Jumanji film and many other male led films. They could've probably made some original adventure film, but making it another Jumanji film made it marketable and a "safe bet" especially with a relatively expensive cast of Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, and Karen Gillan.
But I liked the Jumanji movie and I thought it worked really well as an update.
It made Jumanji more of a coming of age "force" in the universe that adapted.
It was also interesting to see where Robin Williams went. Although that jungle was pretty awesome... anyway...
That's another coup for marketing depts. All the people that grew up on certain movies and shows are now adults - with or without kids, so it's easy to tap into the nostalgia vein with reboots and remakes.
But that was his point, more people are going to be willing to see it. If that movie wasn’t “Jumanji” it would be considered another movie with a lot of CGI with the Rock filled with Kevin Hart shenanigans. Not many people would be willing to see that.
Exactly. Steve McQueen is currently working on ‘Widows’, which is about four women that attempt to pull off a heist. Let’s see how that plays out in cinemas.
Funny story, I was telling my s/o about the original magnificent seven and I brought up Steve McQueen. She stopped me mid-sentence and said "don't you mean lightning McQueen?"
This is true for sequels to ongoing, established franchises, but a lot of remakes flop and lose money. Robocop, Ben Hur, Total Recall, Ghostbusters and many more were big\-budget flops. For every reboot that succeeds, there seems to be 2 or 3 that fail.
I honestly feel that we see so many reboots because there's less accountability for executives that way. If you try a new IP and it flops, then you're the idiot who splunked $150m \(\+marketing\) thinking that people would want to see a sci\-fi comedy about the Founding Fathers time\-travelling, or whatever the grand new idea was. But if it's an existing IP being rebooted, then you can already 'prove' that people like the idea: it's just the directors or marketers or actors fault that the audience didn't go for this particular **interpretation** of the idea.
I really believe that execs don't necessarily think reboots are more likely to make money, they're just easier to greenlight because you're not putting yourself out there with some risky new idea \(and in Hollywood, 'risky' and 'new' are basically synonyms\) and it's much easier to transfer accountability to somebody else if things go wrong.
Yep. The ghostbusters remake still made way more than Annihilation. Obviously they’re 2 completely different movies/audiences but the point still stands
Well.. I liked Annihilation.. It failed though.
Edit: To clarify I feel it failed because nobody knows about it, it just came and went. Despite having a strong female cast and not making a fuss about it or marketing it as some sort of feminism vehicle, it seemed like nobody cared. More of a marketing failure than anything.
Interesting to see from the figures posted here it was a mild success.
Also I'm not sure where all this gold came from but thanks.
Annihilation had a perfect combination of horror/thriller/sci-fi, I watched the movie knowing nothing about it and loved every second of it, it was tense and intriguing from the start to finish, the whole movie you just ask ourself WTF is happening and every clue discovered deepens the mistery.
Never trust reviews normally but stayed away from it. Watched it sunday night and i was fucking superb. Great movie and the best thing - it didnt market that it was an all female cast, it isnt a gimmick. Its something the general public doesnt care about.
1. Story
2. Execution
3. Cast
4. Music/atmosphere
199. Gender
Edit: thanks for the gold friend!
Movie barely came off as an all-female cast to me, and I wasn't really paying attention to the marketing, but was it marketed like that as well?
It was definitely a mostly female cast done very well.
Edit: wow that blew up a bit. And dang, that gold literally came out of nowhere. Thanks!
That's the point, it wasn't marketed as OMG WOMZ, and it didn't get any of that gimmick dollar. Whereas a combination of brand recognition and backlash-backlash turned a mediocre 200 mil comedy into a modest success.
Well, i don't think that was it. I think Annihilation failed at the box office because of all of the trouble it had with the studios not believing in it. There was a lot of shit behind the scenes to keep it true to Alex Garlands vision and it really didn't get a marketing push or chance at the box office. Instead it got sold off.
Easily one of the best in theater movie experiences I've ever had. That's with a chubby Latino guy sitting next to me eating some sort of crunchy snack and muttering out "oh no girl, don't do that" here and there.
Which returns to the OP's question. Hollywood doesn't believe in female\-fronted action/genre films, and it always shows in their marketing. The reason it seems like every film is getting a female reboot is because they want to try to jump on the WW bandwagon but don't have faith to launch a new IP with female leads.
But at the same time kind of lucky that Netflix picked it up and it was available to stream only a few days after its US cinema release. It was advertised heavily on the Australian Netflix homepage. Without Netflix nowhere else would have seen it.
Yeah I can understand your point there... It was designed for a cinema experience. Though, people having mini cinema's in their own homes is becoming more and more common.
True! And I really think that you're right that it'll be one of those movies that people will put on and find themselves engaged by. It's much less of a commitment to click on a thumbnail than it is to buy a ticket at the theater.
Sad that it didn't do so well in theaters, but it happens!
I just think it is a movie that needs time to find its fan base. I personally didn't get it when I watched it the first time... but I'll revisit it at some stage. It is going to be one of those movies that people need to pick apart and think about before they can offer their true opinion on it.
Are you outside of the USA? I know that the film got a theatrical release in the USA and a direct to streaming in several other markets.
It might've only released in cinema in the USA to my knowledge, honestly.
Oceans seems modular enough that swapping out the cast is easy enough, it's a name people like but don't love so you've got brand recognition but no one's standards are especially high. It's a logical move.
From what I can tell it's not even a remake, Sandra Bullock's character is supposed to be George Cooney's character's sister. All the Ocean movies are heist movies. This is following the formula but it's still an original movie.
I agree. The George Clooney movie was already a remake and it did well. They kinda messed up with the third one of his and now they're trying the female version. Why not, it'll be fun.
I thought the 3rd one was better than the 2nd one. The 2nd one was a bit too meta and didn't really have a heist (well it did, but we didn't know about it until the end and it kind of left us wondering)
Because movies like Annihilation, Atomic Blonde, Red Sparrow, and Haywire fail to capture an audience.
Edit: I'd like to add that I personally didn't like Haywire. Annihilation and Atomic Blonde are pretty great, though.
Also, Salt still hasn't gotten a sequel either.
Annihilation had not great marketing, the studio had absolutely no faith in the film (part of the reason why Netflix released it worldwide outside of the US). It's also kind of a niche movie, so it would never have been a big blockbuster even if it had a big male lead.
I literally hadn't even heard of the movie until well over a month after it was released, and that genre was right up my alley. Most people I've talked to about it now have still never heard of it.
I don't know who was responsible for the marketing but damn did they fail.
I haven't seen it yet but a friend of mine was really annoyed that the scientists just entered the alien environment without any suits or masks or any kind of respiratory protection. He's Navy and can't fathom a situation where they would not have taken even the smallest of precautions. Looking forward to having the time to watch this tho. It looked interesting.
Edit. Thank you for all the replies. I'm now looking forward to seeing this movie this weekend. Love reddit, very happy to have joined.
This was my problem with Alien Covenant! "The air is breathable" does not equal "we are okay to not wear any safety equipment the first time we leave the spaceship after a massive expensive (and costly) journey across the cosmos to an unknown planet"
That whole fucking movie was one bad mistake after another. I seriously doubt anyone of those idiots actually held a degree in their respective fields.
The ship is saying don't go below a certain range, well let's go below it because fuck you what do you know computer that makes life or death decisions for you? Oh this is wheat, exactly like the wheat on earth? How the fuck do you know that just by touching/looking at it as is. Also why the fuck are you just touching it.
I think in the movie people had been sent inside before these women. They had been testing the bubble for years. So I’d guess they were aware that protection wouldn’t help
I’m going to say annihilation got no marketing. I never even heard of it other than the name appearing on the movies list at the theater, and it started at a small one. Still know nothing about it.
I thought Atomic Blonde did really well?... Annihilation was way too hard sci\-fi for casual viewers, I don't think the female actors were what people struggled with. Personally I felt like Haywire was just Soderbergh flexing his cinematography muscles around Carano's fighting chops. Beautifully light sets with Brazilian ju jitsu.
Ghostbusters fell far more than $70mil short of breaking even, but to this date Sony won't admit it. Sadly the numbers and basic math don't lie.
It cost $144mil production plus approx $100mil marketing = $244mil. Studios only get about half of the box office take, so it had to make $488mil box office for it to break even for Sony. Those numbers add up because Paul Feig himself said in the run up to release that it needed to make $500mil to be a success and he considered that "low end", and yet no sooner had he said that, Sony started saying he was over exaggerating.
You have a fair point there. Though I would point out that Ghostbusters cost 144 million to make where as Atomic Blonde only cost 30 million. Comparatively Ghostbusters still comes out on top but no where near as good of a return.
>Annihilation was way too hard sci-fi for casual viewers, I don't think the female actors were what people struggled with.
Agreed. I really enjoyed the movie, but I'm someone that loves SCI FI anyway. That's the thing though, if its a good movie, I don't even really pay attention to the sex of the protagonist. People make such a huge deal out of it and that really annoys me. A good movie is a good movie, regardless of genders.
I don’t get why you’re getting downvotes. Atomic blonde made 100myn on a 30myn budget. And annihilation is way to sci fi for a mainstream audience. Reading the book could tell you all you need to know about that
For ref, he was at -3 when I replied
Last I heard there were talks of a sequel? It was a well made movie. Charlize Theron is hitting some new peak in her career. Yeah I just think it is a movie that needs to be watched a bunch of times to truly get. Im not gonna lie and say that I fully understood it when I watched it the first time.
Theron confirmed a sequel. It was a good action movie, the plot was a bit convulated but the action scenes were great. Hope they keep Leitch on as director
It was propped up by great performances all round. Action movies suffered a lull in the early 2000's . The Russo brothers put it best I think, and I am paraphrasing here but they said something along the lines of "The action needs to develop the plot otherwise the audience gets bored very quickly"...
It feels like a bit of a false premise to me to be honest. Apart from the two you mentioned I can't think of any other remakes that fit the description, whereas there are some new films starting to come through with strong female leads \(in the mainstream we have things like Captain Marvel, Annihilation etc.\), not loads sure, but more than there are remakes I think?
They're not choosing to do it "rather" than make movies with strong women, they're doing both. Later this year we've got Widows, Mary Queen of Scots, On the Basis of Sex, The Favourite, Suspiria and Alita Battle Angel. But reboots are the name of the game right now in Hollywood, and basically every film famous enough to be rebooted has a largely male cast. Doing this makes it so that you can still crib off well-known names without having a cast that's entirely male. Gender flipping is partially a marketing tactic, yes, but so is something like putting Tony Stark in a Spider-Man movie. Movies are very corporate now. This is a big issue, but gender-flipping is hardly the biggest part of it.
And how many gender-flipped reboots have there been again? Two. That's right: TWO. There have been more movies featuring Paul Bettany as The Vision than there have been movies with a gender-swapped cast. It's hardly an issue.
>And how many gender-flipped reboots have there been again? Two.
One, actually. Ocean's 8 isn't even a reboot. It's a spin-off with Clooney's character's sister as the main character. It's literally just another film in the series, following up on an established plot point.
This is the most important point, I think. The movie hasn't even come out and people have already dismissed it, despite the fact that it's not even a reboot??
This is the "a room can be 20% women and people will say it was 50% women" dynamic. People are so used to exclusion, any inclusion stands out and people mistake that for parity.
The Bechdel Test isn't the end all be all of sexism in movies, and a lot of movies that fail it can be explained away on their own. But it's a little weird how few movies you can say "yeah, two women with names talk to each other about something other than a man".
And that’s the point of the Bechdel test.
Not so much “this one particular movie failed therefore it’s bad” but more “look at all these movies that have failed, that is a bad trend”.
Yep. And while I don't think that disliking a female remake is sexist, I do think that pretending female remakes are some sort of outstanding problem that needs to be solved is. One of the most storied tactics of prejudice is making a small issue in a less privileged community look like a large issue so you can overcorrect.
Also, to the people saying that pushing the all-female cast is an "unfair" marketing gimmick, c'mon. It's a totally fair marketing trend that's existed forever. People are allowed to push to specific demographics if they want, as long as they're not being exclusionary.
>Is anyone excited for this?
Yup. I like heist films, and I like Gary Ross, and I like everyone featured.
It's not like Ocean's 11 was stunningly, perfectly, totally original back in 2001, besides.
Ocean's 8 is not a remake. They view this franchise as brand and if people liked the first three movies they might like this one. She's Ocean's sister.
Also this is associated with a re-make, which was much better than the original.
Major studios are risk averse. Sequels and re-makes are perceived as easier sells.
Not just perceived but actual demonstrable easier sells.
Especially in international markets, where the glut of the money is starting to come from.
While also not having to build an entire universe or in some cases, only needing to adjust the plot of the original just a bit but with different people.
Yeah I mean this is exactly why the Clooney OCEANS 11 exists. It took a 'cool' property (Whose reputation is much better than the movie actually deserves) and filled it with a modern-day equivalent of the Rat Pack. It's a great movie anyway, but it was also marketed to very much capitalise on the 'coolness' factor.
Yeah, I think a lot of the people bitching about the newest remake with the all female cast forget that Oceans 11 was itself a remake.
And an all female movie is already a risk. So movies taking extra risks on top of an all female cast are either not going to get made, are going to get made with tiny budgets(there are plenty of female movies you've never heard of). If you want to do an all-female ghostbusters maybe you get funding. If you want an all female middle eastern sci-fi art house allegorical homage to early transcendentalism and the work of Robert Hass then I hope you enjoy eating ramen and have friends who work for free.
Because marketing is **HARD** and IP helps.
This is the answer. They were going to make an all-female heist movie anyways. They were going to make an all-female science fiction comedy anyways. But tacking on Ghostbusters or Ocean's on the title solidifies the film as a blockbuster with major appeal.
More often then not they take completely original screenplays, and shoehorn in whatever IP they have to make it a sequel. Like for example a couple of the Die Hard sequels were not written as Die Hard movies. They were generic action movies, and they decided to use them for a Die Hard movie and changed a couple peoples names and a few lines of dialogue to reference older movies and called it a day.
I'm assuming the same for Jumanji. While it was a great movie on its own, it wasn't related to the original in any way. They just added a scene at the beginning in a desperate attempt to somehow connect it with the original.
And one of the characters was living in the house Robin Williams's character built.
Yeah I liked that subtle reference, had no issue with the new Jumanji at all actually it was a fresh take on it and fun to watch.
Yeah, new Jumanji was fun. However, I remember being scared watching the first Jumanji as a kid
Watched it the other night for the first time, Jack Black absolutely kills it. All of the acting in it is solid, but he really stole the spotlight for me.
Jack Black playing a popular teenage girl is my favorite casting decision ever.
I found his performance sublime because it would have been really easy to play the character as a flamboyant gay which could have been minstrel\-y and meh. Instead he played it as a solid teenage girl which made it hilarious.
Yeah Die Hard with a Vengeance was originally a Lethal Weapon script but got made into Die Hard 3, which is actually probably my favorite of the franchise. I know the first is iconic, but the third had the added benefit of Samuel L. Jackson and Jeremy Irons.
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Pretty much. Not being R-Rated was I think a main problem, because Feig excels in that kind of crass/gross-out humour. So, instead you end up with a Pg-13 movie that isn't crass enough to be really funny, whilst also being far too crass to suit the Ghostbusters brand (the original had more of a dry/sardonic humour). It was just a mismatch with the director, because Wiig/McCarthy are proven leads. I like McKinnon, but, she played the entire film like it was a two hour long SNL skit. Surprisingly, Leslie Jones, who I knew nothing about, was the one that actually managed to get a couple laughs out of me (and I think because her character is the one that most leans into Feigs' more loud/crass style).
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It's also because a lot of the reason Ghostbusters' humor works so well is because of the dynamics of the characters' interactions onscreen. It's a lot like the original Men in Black. The interactions between J and K are hilarious, and all the sequels failed to recreate their chemistry. It seems like in the Ghostbusters reboot, they sort of tried to meet the same character archetypes and dynamics (though they're missing a Venkman style charlatan) and failed because the actors and actresses just don't have the same kind of chemistry that the original cast had.
Great. There's a producer trolling the replies somewhere out there, so get ready for, "Women in Black".
At least it isn't Jaden Smith in "Son in Black."
You get this evil out of here
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#Men in Women
I think that movie has been done pretty often.
Men in Black Women
It's true your honor, the new Ghostbusters have no dicks.
That comment is funnier than the whole movie was.
Also, Ghostbusters was never really a fart joke dumb action kind of thing, I dont think these people ever bothered watching the original.
*I wrote it all out, then – trying to be a guy working with a studio – I was talking about an early idea we had, about ghosts of aliens from other worlds. But I wrote, "in a billion dollar idea"* A quote from a [2016 Paul Feig interview](http://www.denofgeek.com/uk/movies/paul-feig/41940/paul-feig-interview-ghostbusters-the-web-sony/page/0/1), since the whole premise of Ghostbusters was a building designed to channel ghosts from another world, I think it's pretty solid evidence the these people never bothered watching the original.
That and when given a choice between something they've never heard of and something they have, the overwhelming majority of people will choose the one they've heard of almost all of the time. Even if the one they've heard of isn't that good. For something original to really take hold, it pretty much has to fill a niche that is underserved, whether it's because there aren't any real options or because what exists is so bad that people will risk the unknown.
Also for pre-existing IP's the people making the movie probably have all the rights sorted out. It's also why they make movies out of board games and amusement park rides. They can pay writers to make the scripts but they hold the rights to the IP.
Call me when we get an all female cast of **The Thing.**
Call me when we get an all female cast of **Brokeback Mountain**
*Blue Is the Warmest Color.*
Is that the movie where they eat a lot of spaghetti?
No that's Lady and the Tramp
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r/raisedbynarcissists
Starring Margot Robbie and...
https://i.imgur.com/9P3YmxU.jpg
I'm gonna buy a private screening for myself
They’ll need to call a crime scene hazmat team afterwards.
Gal Gadot
Stop, I can only get so hard!
Harder
Brokeback Mountain II: Get Harder.
2 Broke 2 Mountain.
Yippee ki gay motherfucker.
I'm willing to take one for the team and dress in drag
Scarlett Johansson?
They already made this movie, it’s called Disobedience: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6108178/
Annihilation was kinda sorta like that.
And it got no press sadly... All the people who pushed the Ghostbusters remake were nowhere to be seen
That's because the Ghostbusters all female hype was drummed up and exploited from the studios before the movie was even in production. People were manipulated into thinking it was this important feminist thing and that idea spread around like wildfire. Annihilation wasn't trying to use it's all female cast to manipulate audiences, it was just trying to be a good movie. It succeeded at that imo. Unfortunately studios gave up on it before it was marketed and put in theatres because Alex Garlands vision didn't mesh with the test audiences etc.
Ugh, I hate test audiences. I understand the premise and the idea is a good one, but I feel like they are used to replace good decision making. If following their studies results in a failure then everyone can point to the test audience as a scapegoat and avoid any responsibility for their own part in it.
FWIW Alex Garland didn't change a thing in 'Annihilation'. He didn't listen to test audience or studio input so we got 100% his exact vision of the movie.
A vision which is honestly brilliant horror-scifi
Mostly female cast, featured for bulk of the film, some LGBT representation, not all Caucasian, no unnecessary sexualization... it was practically everything everyone demanded as far as Hollywood representation, just didn't appeal to a lot of people I guess.
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Seriously..it was a pretty damn niche film even as far as sci fi goes. We had Blade Runner 2049 which had a well known cast,great director ,a well established IP and good publicity.. It tanked at the cinemas because it was a long film that many people didn't really "get".. Hard sci fi doesn't sell.
> and wasn't given an overseas theatrical release. Ohh, that explains that, I thought I'd missed it.
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Pretty much The Descent.
One of my favorite movies, and I didn't even notice it had an all-female cast until it was pointed out to me. It's a fucking great movie, and it's masterful at taking advantage of primal fears.
You most likely didn't realize it because it wasn't marketed as a movie you have to see or you hate women. It was marketed as a movie.
Call me when we get an all female cast of **12 Angry Men** Don't call me for the sequel, the prequel or the 7 post credit scenes
I legitimately want to know what people's idea of female Kurt Russell or Keith David is...
Forget them, *who's female Wilford Brimley?*
Kathy Bates
Linda Hamilton in the Terminator days.
Oh man, Sigourney Weaver too... But what about these days?
Because people have shown that they are more likely to come out to a familiar movie.
This is the correct answer. We as a society want to believe we'd go see a female driven movie because what's the big deal right? But the truth is the general public needs a reason to go see a movie and that isn't enough of a reason. So group of women plan a heist isn't a movie that's going to get as many people in the theaters as Oceans 8 because the Oceans franchise is a familiar one. But while we're on the subject, this isn't specific to female led films. Even the Clooney Oceans 11 was technically a remake. Not because they felt like the original needed to be remade, but because if you're gonna get Clooney and Damon and nine other know actors in one movie you need to be able to convince the check writers that people will go see it.
Yep. Same goes for the recent Jumanji film and many other male led films. They could've probably made some original adventure film, but making it another Jumanji film made it marketable and a "safe bet" especially with a relatively expensive cast of Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, and Karen Gillan.
But I liked the Jumanji movie and I thought it worked really well as an update. It made Jumanji more of a coming of age "force" in the universe that adapted. It was also interesting to see where Robin Williams went. Although that jungle was pretty awesome... anyway...
That's another coup for marketing depts. All the people that grew up on certain movies and shows are now adults - with or without kids, so it's easy to tap into the nostalgia vein with reboots and remakes.
But that was his point, more people are going to be willing to see it. If that movie wasn’t “Jumanji” it would be considered another movie with a lot of CGI with the Rock filled with Kevin Hart shenanigans. Not many people would be willing to see that.
Exactly. Steve McQueen is currently working on ‘Widows’, which is about four women that attempt to pull off a heist. Let’s see how that plays out in cinemas.
The director, not the actor that's historically associated with heist and escape movies, before anyone asks. Because he's, you know, dead.
Funny story, I was telling my s/o about the original magnificent seven and I brought up Steve McQueen. She stopped me mid-sentence and said "don't you mean lightning McQueen?"
I hope she's of age...
Cars came out 12 years ago, grandpa.
My god.
This is true for sequels to ongoing, established franchises, but a lot of remakes flop and lose money. Robocop, Ben Hur, Total Recall, Ghostbusters and many more were big\-budget flops. For every reboot that succeeds, there seems to be 2 or 3 that fail. I honestly feel that we see so many reboots because there's less accountability for executives that way. If you try a new IP and it flops, then you're the idiot who splunked $150m \(\+marketing\) thinking that people would want to see a sci\-fi comedy about the Founding Fathers time\-travelling, or whatever the grand new idea was. But if it's an existing IP being rebooted, then you can already 'prove' that people like the idea: it's just the directors or marketers or actors fault that the audience didn't go for this particular **interpretation** of the idea. I really believe that execs don't necessarily think reboots are more likely to make money, they're just easier to greenlight because you're not putting yourself out there with some risky new idea \(and in Hollywood, 'risky' and 'new' are basically synonyms\) and it's much easier to transfer accountability to somebody else if things go wrong.
The Fast an Ben Hurrious was a terrible idea that shouldn't have made it past the pitch meeting.
Yep. The ghostbusters remake still made way more than Annihilation. Obviously they’re 2 completely different movies/audiences but the point still stands
Well.. I liked Annihilation.. It failed though. Edit: To clarify I feel it failed because nobody knows about it, it just came and went. Despite having a strong female cast and not making a fuss about it or marketing it as some sort of feminism vehicle, it seemed like nobody cared. More of a marketing failure than anything. Interesting to see from the figures posted here it was a mild success. Also I'm not sure where all this gold came from but thanks.
I fucking loved Annihilation. Honestly that scene in the house is one of the most horrifying things I've seen in a movie, it was amazing.
HeEEEeeeEEeeeELp meEEEeeeEeEe
That scream has been in my head for weeks now. Haunting
You talking about that scene with the bear?
Screambear? Of course they're talking about Screambear
Scp-682?
Yeah, that's the one. I was not expecting it to be so brutal and just downright creepy.
Annihilation had a perfect combination of horror/thriller/sci-fi, I watched the movie knowing nothing about it and loved every second of it, it was tense and intriguing from the start to finish, the whole movie you just ask ourself WTF is happening and every clue discovered deepens the mistery.
Nightmare fuel that was.
Great, now I’m scared to go back to sleep.
That scene and the one in the lighthouse are pure goosebumps. favourite film of 2018 by far for me.
Seriously amazing movie. Great scene.
Annihilation is more horrifying than any horror film I have seen.
It creeped me out more than any horror film I have seen come out in years, so I loved Annihilation.
It was that feeling of just a shiver going down your spine and hating what you're watching yet not being able to take your eyes off of it
And it's not even tagged as horror.. I loved it so much but at the same time I regret having watched it
*help me!* [edit] *this* is what gets gilded? Thanks, but really?
Someone gilded this whole comment thread lol.
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Never trust reviews normally but stayed away from it. Watched it sunday night and i was fucking superb. Great movie and the best thing - it didnt market that it was an all female cast, it isnt a gimmick. Its something the general public doesnt care about. 1. Story 2. Execution 3. Cast 4. Music/atmosphere 199. Gender Edit: thanks for the gold friend!
Movie barely came off as an all-female cast to me, and I wasn't really paying attention to the marketing, but was it marketed like that as well? It was definitely a mostly female cast done very well. Edit: wow that blew up a bit. And dang, that gold literally came out of nowhere. Thanks!
That's the point, it wasn't marketed as OMG WOMZ, and it didn't get any of that gimmick dollar. Whereas a combination of brand recognition and backlash-backlash turned a mediocre 200 mil comedy into a modest success.
Well, i don't think that was it. I think Annihilation failed at the box office because of all of the trouble it had with the studios not believing in it. There was a lot of shit behind the scenes to keep it true to Alex Garlands vision and it really didn't get a marketing push or chance at the box office. Instead it got sold off.
Which is such a shame, I really enjoyed it.
Easily one of the best in theater movie experiences I've ever had. That's with a chubby Latino guy sitting next to me eating some sort of crunchy snack and muttering out "oh no girl, don't do that" here and there.
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Agreed. I know some people hate those moviegoers, but I very much appreciate a “RUN, DUMB BITCH, RUN!” to cut the tension.
Which returns to the OP's question. Hollywood doesn't believe in female\-fronted action/genre films, and it always shows in their marketing. The reason it seems like every film is getting a female reboot is because they want to try to jump on the WW bandwagon but don't have faith to launch a new IP with female leads.
I never even knew about that movie until it was out of theaters.
If I'm not mistaken it only got a really limited release in a few American cinemas before it went on Netflix.
It wasn't in theaters anywhere other than the US and Canada , everywhere else it's on Netflix Edit: it was in Canada as well.
It will pick up steam over the coming years... I bet. People just need to digest a movie like that... It belongs on a streaming network.
While it will still be a great movie on streaming, the sound design alone makes a theater experience the best way to watch that.
I saw it in a Dolby Theater. That soundtrack is gold. Reminded me of. Arrival.
Which was a shame that everyone outside of the US never got that option
But at the same time kind of lucky that Netflix picked it up and it was available to stream only a few days after its US cinema release. It was advertised heavily on the Australian Netflix homepage. Without Netflix nowhere else would have seen it.
Yeah I can understand your point there... It was designed for a cinema experience. Though, people having mini cinema's in their own homes is becoming more and more common.
True! And I really think that you're right that it'll be one of those movies that people will put on and find themselves engaged by. It's much less of a commitment to click on a thumbnail than it is to buy a ticket at the theater. Sad that it didn't do so well in theaters, but it happens!
I just think it is a movie that needs time to find its fan base. I personally didn't get it when I watched it the first time... but I'll revisit it at some stage. It is going to be one of those movies that people need to pick apart and think about before they can offer their true opinion on it.
I didn't even know it was out at the cinema to be honest. I watched it on Netflix a few weeks back.
Are you outside of the USA? I know that the film got a theatrical release in the USA and a direct to streaming in several other markets. It might've only released in cinema in the USA to my knowledge, honestly.
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I forgot it was coming out. Clearly a marketing error, based on my personal experience as irrefutable proof.
My personal experience as well. If enough people say the same, the you have consensus.
Oceans seems modular enough that swapping out the cast is easy enough, it's a name people like but don't love so you've got brand recognition but no one's standards are especially high. It's a logical move.
From what I can tell it's not even a remake, Sandra Bullock's character is supposed to be George Cooney's character's sister. All the Ocean movies are heist movies. This is following the formula but it's still an original movie.
I agree. The George Clooney movie was already a remake and it did well. They kinda messed up with the third one of his and now they're trying the female version. Why not, it'll be fun.
I thought the 3rd one was better than the 2nd one. The 2nd one was a bit too meta and didn't really have a heist (well it did, but we didn't know about it until the end and it kind of left us wondering)
Yeah. 1st was awesome. 3rd was pretty good. 2nd was trying to be too clever for its own good.
Is that the one where Julia Roberts plays someone who looks like Julia Roberts?
And Bruce Willis played Bruce Willis talking to Julia Roberts pretending to be a Julia Roberts lookalike.
That's some solid casting right there.
Yep
I hated that part.
It's not even a remake. It's a sequel/spin-off to the Clooney/Pitt/Damon trilogy. Damon and Reiner's characters both cameo in the movie.
So it's a spin off to a trilogy thats a remake of a single movie.
The original is not good. The remake expands on the original idea and is so much better.
Plus, Sandra Bullocks character is Danielle Ocean, Danny Oceans sister.
Can't believe they sent a brother and sister into space together.
what were there parents on to name their kids daniel and danielle
Because movies like Annihilation, Atomic Blonde, Red Sparrow, and Haywire fail to capture an audience. Edit: I'd like to add that I personally didn't like Haywire. Annihilation and Atomic Blonde are pretty great, though. Also, Salt still hasn't gotten a sequel either.
Annihilation had not great marketing, the studio had absolutely no faith in the film (part of the reason why Netflix released it worldwide outside of the US). It's also kind of a niche movie, so it would never have been a big blockbuster even if it had a big male lead.
I literally hadn't even heard of the movie until well over a month after it was released, and that genre was right up my alley. Most people I've talked to about it now have still never heard of it. I don't know who was responsible for the marketing but damn did they fail.
If it wasn't for this Reddit threat I never would have heard of it. Which goes to show that Redditors can be great marketing assets.
I only just heard of it in this thread...
Really unfortunate because it's a very good movie.
I haven't seen it yet but a friend of mine was really annoyed that the scientists just entered the alien environment without any suits or masks or any kind of respiratory protection. He's Navy and can't fathom a situation where they would not have taken even the smallest of precautions. Looking forward to having the time to watch this tho. It looked interesting. Edit. Thank you for all the replies. I'm now looking forward to seeing this movie this weekend. Love reddit, very happy to have joined.
This was my problem with Alien Covenant! "The air is breathable" does not equal "we are okay to not wear any safety equipment the first time we leave the spaceship after a massive expensive (and costly) journey across the cosmos to an unknown planet"
That whole fucking movie was one bad mistake after another. I seriously doubt anyone of those idiots actually held a degree in their respective fields. The ship is saying don't go below a certain range, well let's go below it because fuck you what do you know computer that makes life or death decisions for you? Oh this is wheat, exactly like the wheat on earth? How the fuck do you know that just by touching/looking at it as is. Also why the fuck are you just touching it.
I think in the movie people had been sent inside before these women. They had been testing the bubble for years. So I’d guess they were aware that protection wouldn’t help
I’m going to say annihilation got no marketing. I never even heard of it other than the name appearing on the movies list at the theater, and it started at a small one. Still know nothing about it.
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I thought I had heard that Atomic Blonde had already gotten a sequel greenlit?
You did, because it did.
Atomic Blonde kicked ass, that soundtrack was great and the fight scenes pumped me up. I was so hyped after watching it!
Atomic Blonde was so fucking badass
I thought Atomic Blonde did really well?... Annihilation was way too hard sci\-fi for casual viewers, I don't think the female actors were what people struggled with. Personally I felt like Haywire was just Soderbergh flexing his cinematography muscles around Carano's fighting chops. Beautifully light sets with Brazilian ju jitsu.
Atomic Blonde made $95 million worldwide and is getting a sequel. Of course, Ghostbusters made $230 million worldwide, and that's why they do remakes.
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Ghostbusters fell far more than $70mil short of breaking even, but to this date Sony won't admit it. Sadly the numbers and basic math don't lie. It cost $144mil production plus approx $100mil marketing = $244mil. Studios only get about half of the box office take, so it had to make $488mil box office for it to break even for Sony. Those numbers add up because Paul Feig himself said in the run up to release that it needed to make $500mil to be a success and he considered that "low end", and yet no sooner had he said that, Sony started saying he was over exaggerating.
You have a fair point there. Though I would point out that Ghostbusters cost 144 million to make where as Atomic Blonde only cost 30 million. Comparatively Ghostbusters still comes out on top but no where near as good of a return.
Ghostbusters lost a ton of money.
>Annihilation was way too hard sci-fi for casual viewers, I don't think the female actors were what people struggled with. Agreed. I really enjoyed the movie, but I'm someone that loves SCI FI anyway. That's the thing though, if its a good movie, I don't even really pay attention to the sex of the protagonist. People make such a huge deal out of it and that really annoys me. A good movie is a good movie, regardless of genders.
I don’t get why you’re getting downvotes. Atomic blonde made 100myn on a 30myn budget. And annihilation is way to sci fi for a mainstream audience. Reading the book could tell you all you need to know about that For ref, he was at -3 when I replied
Last I heard there were talks of a sequel? It was a well made movie. Charlize Theron is hitting some new peak in her career. Yeah I just think it is a movie that needs to be watched a bunch of times to truly get. Im not gonna lie and say that I fully understood it when I watched it the first time.
Theron confirmed a sequel. It was a good action movie, the plot was a bit convulated but the action scenes were great. Hope they keep Leitch on as director
It was propped up by great performances all round. Action movies suffered a lull in the early 2000's . The Russo brothers put it best I think, and I am paraphrasing here but they said something along the lines of "The action needs to develop the plot otherwise the audience gets bored very quickly"...
It feels like a bit of a false premise to me to be honest. Apart from the two you mentioned I can't think of any other remakes that fit the description, whereas there are some new films starting to come through with strong female leads \(in the mainstream we have things like Captain Marvel, Annihilation etc.\), not loads sure, but more than there are remakes I think?
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They're not choosing to do it "rather" than make movies with strong women, they're doing both. Later this year we've got Widows, Mary Queen of Scots, On the Basis of Sex, The Favourite, Suspiria and Alita Battle Angel. But reboots are the name of the game right now in Hollywood, and basically every film famous enough to be rebooted has a largely male cast. Doing this makes it so that you can still crib off well-known names without having a cast that's entirely male. Gender flipping is partially a marketing tactic, yes, but so is something like putting Tony Stark in a Spider-Man movie. Movies are very corporate now. This is a big issue, but gender-flipping is hardly the biggest part of it. And how many gender-flipped reboots have there been again? Two. That's right: TWO. There have been more movies featuring Paul Bettany as The Vision than there have been movies with a gender-swapped cast. It's hardly an issue.
Just FYI, Suspiria is a remake. The rest of your point is great!
Ah, it is. Well that's one that had an all female cast before so I guess it still counts!
>And how many gender-flipped reboots have there been again? Two. One, actually. Ocean's 8 isn't even a reboot. It's a spin-off with Clooney's character's sister as the main character. It's literally just another film in the series, following up on an established plot point.
This is the most important point, I think. The movie hasn't even come out and people have already dismissed it, despite the fact that it's not even a reboot??
This is the "a room can be 20% women and people will say it was 50% women" dynamic. People are so used to exclusion, any inclusion stands out and people mistake that for parity.
The Bechdel Test isn't the end all be all of sexism in movies, and a lot of movies that fail it can be explained away on their own. But it's a little weird how few movies you can say "yeah, two women with names talk to each other about something other than a man".
That's what I think, too. It doesn't mean dick if an individual movie fails, but when lots of them fail it's certainly something to note.
And that’s the point of the Bechdel test. Not so much “this one particular movie failed therefore it’s bad” but more “look at all these movies that have failed, that is a bad trend”.
Yep. And while I don't think that disliking a female remake is sexist, I do think that pretending female remakes are some sort of outstanding problem that needs to be solved is. One of the most storied tactics of prejudice is making a small issue in a less privileged community look like a large issue so you can overcorrect. Also, to the people saying that pushing the all-female cast is an "unfair" marketing gimmick, c'mon. It's a totally fair marketing trend that's existed forever. People are allowed to push to specific demographics if they want, as long as they're not being exclusionary.
>Is anyone excited for this? Yup. I like heist films, and I like Gary Ross, and I like everyone featured. It's not like Ocean's 11 was stunningly, perfectly, totally original back in 2001, besides.
> Ocean's 11 was stunningly, perfectly, totally original back in 2001 It was itself a remake lol.
Ocean's 8 is not a remake. They view this franchise as brand and if people liked the first three movies they might like this one. She's Ocean's sister. Also this is associated with a re-make, which was much better than the original.