The most successful, culturally significant and enduring female-led movies and TV shows have been originals, not remakes like Kill Bill, which featured Uma Thurman.
Female reboots of popular film and TV franchises are not empowering women, writes Nicholas Sheppard
It was revealed this month that the Fast & Furious franchise has a female spin-off script in development and, if all goes well, it will be the next project to get the green light in the hugely popular saga. It will be the latest in a whole series of franchises and TV shows rebooted with all-female casts: Ghostbusters, Ocean's Eight, The Hustle, and Terminator: Dark Fate.
The people behind The Expendables franchise have, for some time, been considering a spin-off featuring an all-female cast, which they propose to call The Expendabelles. On TV, Batwoman aired last year, starring Ruby Rose as Kate Kane, Bruce Wayne's cousin. Doctor Who, featuring Jody Whittaker as the latest Doctor, is in its third season. The shows Kung Fu and The Greatest American Hero are being remade with females in the lead.
At first glance, a female recasting of an old favourite can seem like an empowering foray into a typically male property, playing to the strengths and appealing tropes of the original, while also pushing it into new territory and subverting expectations. If Hollywood is trying to demonstrate evidence of progression, then the all-female remakes of recent years would seem to be in line with and bear out those aspirations.
In reality, all-female remakes allow the entertainment industry to claim progress on gender inclusivity without taking many actual risks on original movies featuring female protagonists. This dynamic is more about the reliable revenue of franchise loyalty than it is about varied representations of women. But there are three major problems with this trend of all-female reboots.
Firstly, an analysis of box office takings and TV ratings reveals that they are drastically failing to connect with audiences; secondly, using all-female casts to try and rejuvenate exhausted or flagging franchises is not especially empowering and third, the trend is distracting from the core problem – the lack of original female-driven content making it into production. An increase in the percentage of female directors and writers would result in more original content. But only 8 per cent of film directors and 16 per cent of writers are female.
In this context of gender, consider who was at the helm of the aforementioned reboots. The new Fast & Furious film was conceived and commissioned by Vin Diesel. The Hustle was directed by Chris Addison. The recent Ghostbusters film was written and directed by Paul Feig. Terminator, Dark Fate, was directed by Tim Miller. Ocean's Eight was directed and co-written by Gary Ross. The Expendabelles spin-off was slated to be directed by Robert Lebovic, based on a script by Dutch Southern.
There has been some speculation about who will replace Daniel Craig as the next James Bond and whether this could be a female. When Craig announced he would retire following the latest film, rumours circulated that Captain America actress Lashana Lynch would be next in line for the role. But the franchise producer, Barbara Broccoli, confirmed in an interview that Bond will remain a man; her reasoning perfectly encapsulates the limitations of these all-female reboots and what ought to instead be the priority.
"Bond is male. I believe we should be creating new characters for women – strong female characters. I'm not particularly interested in taking a male character and having a woman play it. I think women are far more interesting than that."
Looking at the first issue, almost all of the major all-female cast reboots of franchises have been critical and box office failures. The all-female Ghostbusters reboot in 2016 was a critical and commercial disaster and ended up losing more than $70 million. (One review: "Who you gonna call? A taxi outta here, of course.") Despite assertions from Sony's worldwide distribution president that sequels were inevitable, the company subsequently went deadly quiet on the idea. In other words, the film performed so poorly that it nearly killed the franchise completely.
Terminator: Dark Fate starred Linda Hamilton returning in her role of Sarah Connor and included Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes, and Gabriel Luna as new characters. It was a critical flop and box-office bomb, grossing US$261 million against an estimated production budget of $190 million. With a break-even point of $450m–$480m, projected losses for the studios involved are estimated to have reached $130m.
Ocean's Eight performed respectably at the box office and featured an excellent cast of award-winning veterans, who were obviously having fun with the script; but the film has only a 45 per cent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. "Its protagonists are very inspired in their roles," one critic noted, "but it lacks something that defines it as an individual entity beyond its female cast." The Hustle, featuring Rebel Wilson and Anne Hathaway, has a rating of only 44 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes, and just 14 per cent on IMDB (Internet Movie Database).
Men in Black International took away the essential dynamic of Will Smith playing off a grumpy older male character and introduced Tessa Thompson as one of the co-leads. The previous three Men in Black films combined for more than $1.6 billion in worldwide box office takings. Men in Black: International significantly under-performed on its opening weekend and reviews were dismal with a 25 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Several critics noted the somewhat arbitrary gender swapping-out of one of the leads. One summarised the film by saying, "MiB International grinds its stars' chemistry through the gears of a franchise running low on reasons to continue."
The recently-released Birds of Prey, featuring Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn in a spin-off from the movie Suicide Squad, had a significantly disappointing opening weekend managing only $33 million from a predicated $55 million.
The same dynamic has played out on TV. When Doctor Who introduced Jody Whittaker as the new Doctor, many commentators found the move affirming and progressive, reacting with bemusement at the fact such a decision, in a mere TV show, could cause such grumblings of discontent. However, the show has slid to an abysmal 16 per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes, making Whittaker by far the most unpopular Doctor in the show's modern history.
The show's ratings are cratering. The latest episode, Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror, was watched by only 4 million viewers in the UK, the least viewed episode in 31 years, stretching all the way back to Season 23 in 1986. The episode was also the eighth least-watched episode of the entire show, which first aired in 1963, more than half a century ago.
In the debut episode of Batwoman, part of the Arrowverse stable of productions, Ruby Rose's character, staring at the batsuit in Bruce Wayne's grotto, declares to Batman's old ally, Lucius Fox: "I need you to fix the suit." Fox says, "The suit is literal perfection." Rose replies, "It will be – when it fits a woman." After its debut, Batwoman sat at a 3.2 out of 10 and had a dismal 8 per cent audience score on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes respectively.
What the modern trend fails to recognise, is that the most successful, culturally significant and enduring female-led movies and TV shows have been originals, not remakes. All featured protagonists whose femininity was an important part of their character without defining their entire personality. Those shows enjoyed success among male and female audiences because their appeal was centered on the original concept and plot, not the gender of the main character.
The science fiction horror film Alien introduced Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) as a character whose gender didn't matter in terms of her narrative development, proving that casting women in lead action roles doesn't compromise the relatability or success of such movies. The original Terminator film introduced Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) as a young waitress whose character arc sees her transform into a resourceful and courageous protagonist by the film's end. Kill Bill showed again that a woman could lead an original and successful mainstream action film. Bridesmaids showed that a female ensemble could deliver a hugely successful and original comedy. The Hunger Games proved a young female protagonist could lead an original young adult franchise. Smart and sophisticated films such as The Arrival, Erin Brockovich, Hidden Figures, and a host of other female-driven narratives prove that original films with female protagonists are appreciated by both men and women.
On the surface, all-female reboots of familiar and sometimes exhausted franchises may seem empowering but the reality is, they are more part of the problem than the solution. At best they are a transition toward what is truly ideal: more equal female representation at all levels of film-making, from commissioning, to writing, to directing – leading to engaging storytelling that appeals to everyone.
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