by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Now, this may all happen in the context of America pulling itself out of the ruble of a Second American Civil War, but Hollywood is ripe for a massive series of reboots of existing IP.
I say this because all of the major franchises at the moment are pretty much dead in the water. They’ve been strip mined to the point that audiences — or at least the audiences that grew up with them, are worn out. As such, there is going to come a tipping point when studio execs realize that there is a whole generation or two ripe to re-introduce franchise after franchise to.
There will be much waling and gnashing of teeth by Baby Boomers and GenX, but in the end, we’re all going to see ourselves throwing down $20 at a streamer showing us a start-from-scratch reboot of Alien, Blade Runner, Die Hard, The Terminator and maybe even The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
Just take Alien, for instance. I could very easily see Zendaya play a totally new Ripley in a totally new version of Alien that would start the whole franchise fresh. Give her a three picture deal and finally sort that particular franchise clusterfuck out once and for all. You get a hip horror director a three picture deal as well when you do this and you’ve just made yourself half a billion dollars.
What’s interesting is the James Bond franchise is, as of this moment, doing fairly well. It seems to me Henry Cavill — despite some unsettling blind items that allegedly are about him — would be the perfect new James Bond. He’s definitely who I think of when I think of “James Bond for the 2020s.” He’s got the Right Stuff for the role.
Anyway, I guess what I’m pointing out is, we’re just about to see a generational changing of the guard. This happens every once in a while, when people too young to remember The Good Olde Days, discover The Beatles, or whatever. This time, it will be Hollywood and it’s going to be pretty lit. A lot of the strip minding errors of Hollywood’s past should be fixed (I hope) because the studios know they have great IP on their hands and all they have to do is give the new versions of these beloved franchises some forethought before they roll them out to Xennials.
