Turning Back the Clock: Some Guidelines for Reboots

It’s been a while since I last gave my thoughts on Hollywood’s franchise-building techniques; almost exactly six months, in fact. Back then I talked about when it’s acceptable for Hollywood to remake a film. This time I thought I’d take a broader approach and look at when it’s appropriate for Hollywood to reboot an entire franchise.

Now, technically, even a single film can be viewed as a franchise. But for the purposes of this discussion, I’m looking at those situations where there is either more than one film in the franchise (e.g., Rocky), or where there’s one film but a pre-existing character and story from other media (e.g., The Phantom). (I’ll note that those examples were chosen specifically because I am unaware of any reboots in the making for either… and in the case of Rocky, I hope there never will be. But more on that later.) I’ll also note that I’m not really counting cases like Robin Hood and King Arthur, where there are dozens of films on the same characters, but they aren’t really connected as such.

Rebooting a franchise has a certain logic to it. It’s a known money-maker, or at least is strongly hoped to be. But for one reason or another simply continuing the series as it stands is untenable. So, assuming Hollywood wants to reboot a franchise, what are the things to consider?

News Bites: Sunday, Smith, and Spider-Man

There wasn’t much news that I had noticed come Friday, so I posted a review instead; however, some stuff has come in during the last few days that’s of interest, so here’s a Sunday edition of the news bites.

Dane Dehaan, who played the unstable telekinetic Andrew in Chronicle, has been cast as Harry Osborn in The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

In more Amazing Spider-Man news, Jamie Foxx has confirmed the rumors that he will be playing the villain Electro.

Kevin Smith has been talking retirement from directing for a while. For a time, it looked like Hit Somebody would be his last film, but with it switching to a miniseries, Smith has said on Twitter he’s now considering a different “final film”: Clerks 3. While I can appreciate the bookend nature that would add to his career, I wonder if a third film is really necessary to the franchise — for that matter, while I liked the second, it wasn’t exactly necessary either. And what’s with these relatively young directors talking about bowing out early? Tarantino has been making similar noises lately.

Christoph Waltz has dropped out of the Muppets sequel due to a scheduling conflict; Ty Burrell is replacing him in the role as an inspector.

Fox’s reboot of Fantastic Four has been scheduled for March 6, 2015. Josh Trank is directing, no casting decisions have been released.

Linda Woolverton, who wrote the screenplay for the Tim Burton-directed Alice in Wonderland, is at work writing a sequel for Disney. So far she is the only person attached to the project. She is also the writer on Maleficent, Disney’s live-action Sleeping Beauty film starring Angelina Jolie.

Weekly Weblinks: Flight From Friday

Hello, everybody. It’s Saturday morning, and that means… I’m a day late with the Weekly Weblinks. Sorry. Those of you who follow me on Twitter knew of the delay in advance, of course, but for those who don’t (or missed it, or just want an explanation), there are a few simple reasons that came together to hold it back by a day. First, because I lost track of how fast October was going by, I wound up with a bit more Halloween Haunters content than I had days for in October. This meant that it wound up going on through November 2nd, which left Friday being a little bit busy between a large post and the round-up. Adding a third post for the Weekly Weblinks would have seemed a bit of a disservice to it. Plus, the fact that my posts for November 1 and 2 were fairly lengthy meant I had less time to spend reading other peoples’ blogs, and had to have the extra day to catch up.

The extra day would have been necessary anyway though thanks to a glitch in my email server. I follow most of the blogs I read by having the post notifications emailed to me — I can and do keep track on Twitter and Facebook, of course, but email is most helpful to me in keeping them organized. And for some nutty reason, the virus scanner on my mail server decided to hold on to absolutely everything and not let me see it for a few days. I’m still not entirely sure it’s released everything at this point. The end result is that I had quite a rush job on catching up on everything once I finally had it available. But things are finally straightened out, and I’ve selected some choice reviews from other bloggers — four of them for new films. There’s also some interesting news on the upcoming film front. Click through to find out what’s going on.

Rock Liebster

So there’s this meme going around called the “Liebster Award”; it’s basically a way to pass around questions and draw attention to other blogs. I’ve been tagged by three people (that I know of; if I’ve missed one, sorry!), so I figured I’d knock out a post to answer the questions. There are a few rules associated with it, but a: I’m not always good about following rules, and b: most of the rules relate to passing the award on. While there are many bloggers who I think are worthy of a spotlight — if I’m following you, and/or if I’ve featured you in my Weekly Weblinks, you’re almost certainly one of them — I suspect that anybody I could tag either doesn’t want to do it or has been tagged three or four times already. So like a few others I’ve seen, I won’t be passing it along — but if by chance you haven’t been tagged and want to have been, consider yourself tagged and steal 11 questions from the people who asked me questions. I’m sure they won’t mind.

The other rules are that I have to post eleven things about myself, and answer 11 questions from the people who tagged me. Since three people tagged me, that’s 33 questions. Plus 5 more from a fellow rule-breaker. So here we go.

Weekly Weblinks: Kubrick and Kurosawa

Getting a bit of a late start today, thanks to an intermittent internet connection over the last few days throwing me off my rhythm. But, while it’s now Friday afternoon rather than the usual Friday morning scheduled time, it’s still time for the Weekly Weblinks roundup of great blog posts and interesting news items. This week there’s discussion about some major directors, yet more superhero movie news, another iteration of the Ghostbusters 3 yo-yo, and word on perhaps the least necessary remake ever. Plus, dinosaurs. So read on for the Weekly Weblinks!

Weekly Weblinks: Conventions and Cyborgs

This week’s dose of the Weekly Weblinks is coming a day later than normal, due to yesterday being Friday the 13th and thus having a film that demanded to be seen and reviewed. Fortunately for me, I didn’t title this series with a particular day in mind. Hooray for thinking ahead!

San Diego Comic-Con 2012 is in full swing as I write this, and various tidbits are just starting to come out of the convention. Chances are there will be quite a few items for next week’s entry, but there are already some pretty significant announcements in today’s edition. And on the blogging side of things, there’s a lot of talk about comic book movies, and a few cult classic films. So read on for the Weekly Weblinks!

Weekly Weblinks: Linked Lists

It’s time for the Weekly Weblinks! This week, it seems like a lot of people are tackling series of movies, or putting out interesting lists of films. Bloggers are tackling the entire series for a couple superheroes, or picking the most iconic films within a theme.

In the news, more Marvel mayhem as Disney starts work on their first animated Marvel feature, a biopic that doesn’t want to focus on the popular part of its subject’s life, and a list of upcoming sci-fi films that have no connection to existing franchises.

This week’s posts may take a while to read, so sit back and read on for the Weekly Weblinks!

Drawing a Steady Line: Some Guidelines for Sequels

Sequels. They’re ubiquitous. It seems like at least half of the movie news I see is regarding some sequel or prequel. Action movies of various stripes (fantasy, science-fiction, superhero, and more) are the genre most prone to receive sequels, but comedies and the occasional drama are known to receive them as well. There are over a dozen sequels being released in 2012, and it’s not even a big year for sequels. And there are, of course, more on the way. But this isn’t a new trend in Hollywood by any stretch; it’s been going on since The Fall of a Nation in 1916, which also started the trend of sequels that were directed by a different person.

And sequels aren’t an inherently bad thing. Hollywood wouldn’t keep churning them out if people didn’t go to see them, and people wouldn’t go to see them if they didn’t at least hope they would be entertained. Some have even achieved critical acclaim, with The Godfather: Part 2 winning an Oscar for Best Picture, and Toy Story 3 receiving a nomination for the same. But there’s also no question that there are a lot of bad, or just disappointing, sequels and prequels out there. So, under the same presumption that went into my Guidelines for Adaptations, I thought I would take a look at what can make or break a sequel. Again, none of these suggestions are absolute binding rules… but they’re pretty reliable guidelines.

So what goes into a quality sequel?

Weekly Weblinks: Spidey, Scots, and Rocker Snots

It’s Friday morning, and so it’s time for another dose of the Weekly Weblinks. This week’s blog posts include another take on Brave, a review of a film that is coming out soon, and a few reviews of films that range from a year old to a 1960s classic.

In the news, an unlikely TV adaptation, a prog metal group’s demise, Keanu Reeve’s next big thing, and yet more puppet film news. So read on for a Weekly Weblinks that is surprisingly heavy in the Scottish influence. (I swear I don’t plan these things.)

Weekly Weblinks: Moonrise and Marvels

It’s Friday morning (at least if I actually schedule this correctly this week!) and so it’s time once again for the Weekly Weblinks. Every week I select a handful of blog posts that I’ve enjoyed reading, and feature them here to spread the word and help build the community. This week’s selection of blog posts includes a couple reviews of newly-released movies, an in-depth look at Alfred Hitchcock’s cinematography, and more.

Also included are a few tidbits of news, which this week mostly consists of superhero movie rumors, as well as the latest from our favorite corporate nutcases at Hasbro, so read on!