Why all the reboots?

Cafe Society
1

My wife and I watched the “Fantasy Island” reboot last night due to a lack of anything else we could find to watch. It was a 21st century update with Mr. Roarke’s grand niece running the show now. It was as cheesy and unexceptional as I figured it would be.

This isn’t a “why is Hollywood out of ideas?” question. I understand recycling concepts and ideas- even a lot of Shakespeare’s plays were recycled from older stories.

My question is, why recycle the exact thing? There was a ‘Hawaii 5-0” reboot a few years back. I understand the appeal of “crime show in paradise-like setting”, but is there so much residual love for the old 70s show that a reboot with the same name will give it a boost? Why not just recycle the concept and call it something else? Is it because some entity still holds the rights to the old show, and if the new show is too close to the old concept the creators of the new show expose themselves to legal action, so it’s safer to buy the rights tothe older property?

And I understand why a reboot of the exact thing is a good idea in some cases- when say, a ‘Hulk’ or ‘Fantastic 4’ movie bombs, but Hollywood figures the franchise is still a good, workable concept, try again in a few years with hopefully a better director, cast and script. Or, if the franchise is successful, even- if it worked, and it’s fondly remembered, do it again— “this isn’t your older brother’s Spider-Man movie, har har”.

But all the same-name reboots of ancient, dimly remembered at best shows and movies, I don’t quite get.

2

I think because there’s so much to watch (supposedly over 500 new shows annually across all platforms) that a known quantity will attract an audience that won’t try a new show. Heck, I’m kind of interested in the Fantasy Island reboot.

3

Marketing. It’s easier to market a name people know than something new. Given the cost of creating a show or movie, you don’t want to have to explain what it’s about if you can get away with it.

4

Yeah, I admit part of the reason we watched the Fantasy Island reboot pilot was a mild curiousity about how they updated it for the 21st century. But we’ve long aged out of the prime 18-34 demographic that Hollywood loves. Has anyone in that age group even heard of the original Fantasy Island? Maybe it picked up a younger following in reruns somewhere.

5

Boomer/Gen-X instant nostalgia appeal. I don’t remember Fantasy Island well, but I have fairly pleasant memories of it as a kid and the basic premise is familiar. So, despite the fact that the original show probably wouldn’t hold up to viewing a DVD box set, I still might react to a reboot of Fantasy Island with a mixture of fond nostalgia and immediate familiarity with the concept. Versus some other show I have no attachment to and might not even understand what it is.

Even if you argue that the new show isn’t aimed at that demographic, you don’t really lose anything by it. Maybe someone born in 1998 never watched the show but they might as least be familiar with it. And they probably won’t be put off by it. So there’s little risk to attaching to the former show’s popularity. Heck, even a terrible show being rebooted probably gains more in curiosity in how they’re going to make it work this time than people refusing to watch because the 1981 version sucked.

6

The people who are creating and greenlighting these things are the same people who grew up watching them.

“I loved Knight Rider when I was a kid, so it should still be a good show!”

Of course what these people fail to realize is Knight Rider was garbage to begin with and the only reason anyone ever watched it is because it was before cable TV was ubiquitous and everyone only had like 3 channels.

7

There was a Blumhouse movie a year or two ago.

8

Because people want reboots:

This concurrent thread is at 91 posts as I write this.

If no one watched reboots, Hollywood would stop making them. But not only is there a passive audience acceptance of them, there’s a positive demand.

There’s also the “elevator pitch” idea. There’s a longstanding belief in Hollywood that you need to be able to pitch your idea in the time it takes to ride an elevator a few floors. That’s gone from a bit of wisdom about studio execs’ short attention spans to a bit of a self-fulfilling truism. A lot of execs seem to honestly believe if you don’t make an “elevator pitch” for your concept, it’s not worth pursuing. And “Reboot X!” is a pretty succinct pitch. Once you get your foot in the door with the elevator pitch, you can explain how your version will be different and improve on the old version. Or not.

9

Ok, I can see the points you’re all making. Still, it seems like there have been some reboots in recent years made from particularly old, obscure shows / movies that really had me thinking “what’s the point of a same-name remake for THAT??”

But I can’t think of a better example right at the moment, and my power and internet are down right now, so I don’t want to burn up too much phone data looking it up (killing time on the SD message boards is worth it though, of course )

10

Because the studio making the reboot already has the rights, so there’s no licensing issues. Or the rights are cheap to acquire precisely because they’re so obscure. Both Marvel and DC have dived deep into their back catalogs, and Marvel in particular has dredged up some really obscure properties that became really popular (even a lot of hardcore Marvel fans had no idea who Groot was before Guardians of the Galaxy, and he’s now a fan favorite). You never know when you’re going to hit gold with an old and obscure property that resonates with the audience.

And being obscure can actually be a point in its favor. Ideally, you have a property that people have heard of and have some vague memory of, so there’s some built-in name recognition and audience appeal. But at the same time, if the present audience doesn’t have a lot invested in the prior canon, you can do pretty much whatever you want with the property, and not piss off audiences for “ruining their childhoods”.

And if the property has other associations, so much the better. Again, Marvel and DC have mined pretty deep into their IP, and in particular Marvel can get people to give just about anything a try if it has the Marvel brand attached to it.

11

For Hollywood movies, there’s a lot of money involved for investments, several competitors, high ticket prices, and the need to sell globally. That means the need to make films using formulas that worked in the past, using franchises in place and rehashing material to shorten development time, using a lot of CGI and spectacle to make movies look expensive, plus make them at least two hours long, in order to justify ticket prices, focus mostly on the PG sweet spot to maximize views, keep story lines simple and if possible driven by action in order to attract viewers from different cultures, and do the same thing several times a year.

That’s why many tent-pole flicks are sequels, prequels, rehashes, re-imaginations, reboots, spinoffs, and so on. And they have to be marketed globally in order to cover production and additional costs (like marketing) plus deal with box office revenues that are not received fully by producers but shared with exhibitors. Hence, the point that a movie has to earn at least 2.5 times its production cost in order to just break even. And if there investors who cover half of that production cost, they will not be happy with that, and usually want their returns right away. Also, the movie has to do well if there is a chance of a sequel.

Similar is taking place in TV shows, too, and with extensive use of CGI, several will probably even focus more on streaming, and probably even make TV shows instead of movie versions.

The problem is that they generally begin to look alike, and viewers are getting bored. It’s possible that more of them would rather just watch a few shows and then just wait for the rest to show up on streaming or in the bargain bin. In several cases, viewers are probably only interested in watching only a few shows in streaming services, wait for a series of movies or a new season of a TV show to be released, pay for one month to binge-watch them, then unsubscribe and wait for the next.

Finally, the same might be taking place in other media, including music and even video games.

12

If the Fantasy Island reboot of which you speak is essentially identical to the original, I’m quite confused, because I could’ve sworn I saw ads for a Fantasy Island that had gone all dark, where your fantasies come true but with a twist that ruins them, and/or the delightful tropical paradise setting doesn’t let you leave — I don’t entirely remember the details (obviously!) but the 70’s treacle had definitely been replaced with ant poison.

What am I possibly confusing it with?

13

Good points, @gdave. I seem to remember from other posts that you have some involvement in the entertainment industry, if I recall correctly. Sounds like you know your stuff, in any case.

Hehe, like the elevator pitch for “let’s remake Ghostbusters, but with ALL WOMEN!”. Personally I was fine with the concept, if not the execution. Didn’t understand all the outrage.

But then I was already an adult, or close to it, when the original came out, so the new one could not have ruined my childhood anyway.

14

It was a movie last year:

15

The problem with that is everyone is just going to complain it’s a rip-off of the original. Imagine if instead of doing a cover, a band came out with the song “(I’m not able to get any) fulfillment”.

16

I wouldn’t mind seeing the horror-fied version, though I heard it kinda bombed.

Incidentally, I’m old enough that I remember the pilot for the original Fantasy Island. I think it was a ‘movie of the week’ type thing that was picked up as a series later. In the pilot the island wasn’t magical like it later became in the series— it was a fancy resort where the fantasies were granted with magician-style smoke and mirror illusions. Something went wrong with one of the guest’s fantasies, in which he had several near-misses, almost getting badly hurt or killed.

It turned out that one of Mr. Roarke’s employees, who worked behind the scenes making the fantasies, had some past grudge on the guest and was trying to kill him. There was a climactic scene where the employee confronted the guest and, about to kill him, says “the hell with you”. Mr Roarke comes in on a helicopter riding shotgun (literally: he was holding a shotgun), hops out, points it at the bad guy and says, in his rich Corinthian accent, “no, Mr. _________, the hell with YOU.”.

That take on it is a series I’d watch the hell out of.

17

Ugh!! I watched that Fantasy Island last night too. Absolutely horrible. The old married couple story made no fucking sense.

It’s so frustrating bc FI is a wonderful concept but every time they try to reboot it, they fail.

18

Speaking of reboots, everyone in Hollywood seemed to have forgotten the TV film Haunts of the Very Rich, which I always took to be the inspiration for FI. It already was the “horror film” variation, in 1972.

19

Most people in Hollywood aren’t old enough to remember a TV movie from 1972.

20

Well, then, they should have people for that. :slight_smile: