Finally, ‘Reboot’ Is A Dirty Word

The bean counters at Hollywood love a sequel, especially a short term update.  Make a successful movie?  Great, start work on the sequel.  Hell even if it has hot previews, start work before the damn thing is even out.  On the other hand, if a property has been on the shelf for a while, these same decision makers would shy away from a sequel concept.  On the one hand if you have an old series that was successful but exhausted and shelved, they’d see a profit in repackaging its name but they’d also see risk in trying to ‘pick up’ where they left off.

Will the kids know who the old characters are?  Maybe we should reboot, get someone younger.

But that kind of idea is frowned upon by even casual fans.  They’re set in their ways and they don’t want the furniture being moved around.  Total Recall, RoboCop. Ghostbusters, Clash of the Titans, Point Break… these are not popular ventures.  These movies and many like them are actively hated.  It took a while for the decision makers to catch on.

The word reboot has become dirty and portending of an unsafe financial bet.

Who ya gonna call? (The old actors)

They’re realising that they can pull the old stuff out of the drawer and call up the rickety actors who worked their scenes back in the day and offer them some money.  Case in point; the new MacGuyver trailer went down like a turd in a swimming pool.  Check out the dislike holocaust on the trailer.  In a panic, CBS decided that all of a sudden this series was to be less of a reboot and more of a sequel.  They called Richard Dean Anderson and asked him to show up and, you know, make it more ‘sequely’.

Another one was the new Star Trek series.  Remember in 1994 when they bridged the gap between Kirk and Picard, with that really inventive ‘Generations’ screenplay?  They sort of did that again with Chris Pine, another time paradox angle assuaged fans of the series while getting away with being a reboot.  Terminator: Genisys tried the same thing, but, well… even scientists can’t explain that clusterfuck.

Nostalgia incoming

Maybe the biggest sign that we were now firmly in a big money nostalgia run was when Shane Black announced his new Predator movie.  Some were quick to use the dirty word.  But Shane Black was quick to correct them.  It ain’t no reboot, said Black.  Straight sequel.  Want more proof?  Let’s look at the Alien franchise.  Someone in Fox towers persuaded Ridley Scott to ditch the name Prometheus and instead get back to some good old fashioned 20th century hankering.  Use the word ‘Alien’ in your title (Alien: Covenant).  Remember when Scott showed near contempt for promoting the first prequel as an Alien movie?  It ain’t that way now.

Maybe the most exciting one though is the untitled Aliens sequel.  It is clearly nostalgia fuelled, with Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn and the old Pulse Rifle returning.  Ten years ago, who would have thought big names were pushing for such a movie?  Two even, the Alien franchise is in full bloom and the studio is adhering strictly to canon.

What else?  Bourne is back.  Kevin Bacon wants in on the action with a real Tremors sequel.  Keanu Reeves wants two, Speed 3 and another Bill & Ted.  Rocky is still around, Blade Runner is returning with a belated sequel… definitely less plastic remakes.

A good thing.