Reboot culture in comic book films?

[Mr Cat Dog]

This sorta sprung up out of the discussion (http://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=241420&page=3) in the Dark Knight Rises thread when it was announced that the new president of Warner Bros. has plans to 'reinvent' Batman after the conclusion of the Nolan trilogy, as well as develop a new Justice League movie without Bale-as-Batman or Cavill-as-Superman.

It's not just Batman though: The Amazing Spider-Man, to be released around the same time as TDKR next year is Marvel's attempt to reboot the Spider-Man franchise after director Sam Raimi refused to hurry the development of Spider-Man 4; Zack Snyder of 300 and now Sucker Punch fame (or infamy?) is on course to make a new Superman film, just 5 years after Superman Returns did merely OK at the box office and with fans; and let's not forget poor Bruce Banner - played by Eric Bana in 2003, Edward Norton in 2008, and now Mark Ruffalo in 2012 - the Hulk is probably the sorriest example of this recent culture of rebooting unpopular franchises.

So, what do people think? Is it a good thing that the studios can just reboot whole franchises if they weren't massively popular at the box office, or do they owe some debt to the fans to truly treasure their favourite superheroes and begrudge what's becoming of them?

[TRIFORCE89]

Spider-Man 3 was plasbad. Superman Returns was plasbad. I don't really have experience with Hulk, but I'm assuming they were plasbad XD

I don't care if they "try again" with those franchises. I think fans would prefer that.

I love Nolan's work and his Batman series. But... it doesn't bug me that they want to move on once that series is finished. Batman existed before Nolan and Batman will exist after Nolan. I'd prefer that future incarnations try to distance themselves from previous ones so that they don't damage the previous series.

Reboots aren't limited to comic book stories though.

What about Star Trek? That worked out great. And Bond? (Okay, Quantum of Solace sucks. But Casino Royale is a terrific movie)

[Esper]

I liked Quantum of Solace. :(

But I don't mind reboots at all. The only thing I want from them is the same thing I want from all movies I see - that they be good. If they're not then they're just taking up valuable movie-making time and money that could be used for something I'd actually watch.

Like Triforce said, these series are going to outlast a couple of movies and directors so even if a bad movie gets made there's always the chance that they'll get re-rebooted into something good eventually.

[Mr Cat Dog]

Yay, discussion!

I think the main problem that I have with this reboot culture is the immediacy of everything, and how it all seems to be speeding up: especially in this last decade. I've no problem at all with a franchise being remade after a number of years have passed, like the Nolan Batman trilogy was. What bothers me is the notion that studios feel they HAVE to re-invent their franchises when they're in danger of disappearing because they are their most lucrative assets and depend on them for most of their business (e.g. the current situation at DC/Warner Bros with a potential Justice League film). There's no time being given to reflection or contemplation of what went wrong, but an immediate desire to say: "This film didn't work. We need a new one to force people to forget it." Even if people genuinely do think the older ones are bad, I just don't think the present attitude used by studios is the best solution. To me, it just wreaks of bandwagon jumping.

With regards to some of the specific examples mentioned: Does the craptastic nature of Spider-Man 3 dilute the achievements of the previous films in that trilogy and make a reboot less or more palatable? The non-comic book franchises mentioned - Bond and Star Trek - feel much less problematic to me as they're not the results of executives noting a potential nosedive in profits, and there's no immediacy problem either.

But... yay, discussion!