Archived. I haven't watched Ghostbusters in a very long time but I am familiar with the phenomenon of people expecting way too much from a franchise. Like reviewers faulting super-hero movies for...
I haven't watched Ghostbusters in a very long time but I am familiar with the phenomenon of people expecting way too much from a franchise. Like reviewers faulting super-hero movies for their lack of sophistication and profound social commentary.
Would you say a Ribeye is bad because it is not Japanese A5 Wagyu? No! They're in different categories!
Most recently, A Monk Movie was perfectly fine and people are decrying it for being, essentially, a very long episode of Monk. I was perfectly content. What did people expect? Godfather?
I loved it. It's really was just like a long episode of Monk. They didn't try to make any big statements about how San Francisco is different now than it was when the show first aired, but didn't...
I loved it. It's really was just like a long episode of Monk. They didn't try to make any big statements about how San Francisco is different now than it was when the show first aired, but didn't ignore that the movie takes place long after the show.
I'm not nostalgic, so I don't have as much expectations for the franchise. Afterlife was pretty good imo. It was fun and bridged the old series in a decent way. You need that bridge with a series...
I'm not nostalgic, so I don't have as much expectations for the franchise. Afterlife was pretty good imo. It was fun and bridged the old series in a decent way. You need that bridge with a series like this. The important thing is where you go from there.
Frozen Empire was okay. There were several plot lines that did not coalesce in a great way. Unlike Afterlife, the vision for Frozen Empire did not seem clear. So much like Star Wars movies after Force Awakens, this sequel was not a great followup.
On the other side of that, Creed does a great job of taking an old franchise and bringing it to the modern era. Ryan Coogler is an excellent director. So it is possible for modern sequels to old franchises to excel. That being said, it is especially difficult.
To bring it back to your example, I love the Monk TV show. The ending of the series is incredible. I literally needed nothing after that series finale. The movie I had doubts about. Just because of how difficult it is to do followups like that. The movie turned out alright. The criticism is that it's one long episode is dumb. But that's not to say other criticisms aren't fair.
So I think it's fair to have expectations for these kinds of movies. The ones who will support it are the fans. But I think it's important for there to be a good reason to make these things and the right person to herald it. If a franchise is good or great, then I would rather it be left alone than have a bad or mediocre followup.
This is from David Sims, the co-host of the Blank Check podcast. I used to listen to it during the pandemic but haven't kept up on it since then. And my perception on film has somewhat diverged...
This is from David Sims, the co-host of the Blank Check podcast. I used to listen to it during the pandemic but haven't kept up on it since then. And my perception on film has somewhat diverged from a lot of the fanbase of that podcast. You can read their discussion of this article on their subreddit.
The 2016 Ghostbuster stuff was always an odd thing for me. I didn't watch it until two years ago, but it was so odd how that became a culture war thing. On both sides. Liberals going hard on defending the film was always funny to see. I didn't mind the film but I think about some of the defenses of it (including that it was better than the original) and it's hilarious in retrospect.
The thing I disagree with in this article is the framing of Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Yes it was made as a response to the 2016 film, but it's box office being the same as the 2016 film doesn't count. If the pandemic didn't happen Afterlife would have absolutely outgrossed the 2016 film. Another problem with that framing is that the 2016 film cost nearly twice as much to produce as Afterlife. I also disagree that that film only appealed to hardcore aging fans, since I liked the film and I'm not a Ghostbusters fanatic or anything. I think it's just a decent piece of entertainment which was much better made than the 2016 film (unsurprisingly since Jason Reitman is an Oscar nominee after all).
I don't think the legacy sequel is coming to an end necessarily. But I do think the specific nostalgia hype machine targeted at GenX white dudes (Star Wars/Ghostbusters/Indiana Jones/The Flash) is over. Especially if the films don't stand on their own. Which is why I think something like Beetlejuice is different, since the original film has a more female fanbase (from what I've noticed anyway) or Twister which isn't specifically hyped by that Ghostbusters demo.
I still haven't seen it, but I remember the furor. My take was that around the same time there was a bad Ninja Turtles remake, a bad Robocop remake, multiple bad Transformers remakes, a bad Total...
I still haven't seen it, but I remember the furor. My take was that around the same time there was a bad Ninja Turtles remake, a bad Robocop remake, multiple bad Transformers remakes, a bad Total Recall remake, and probably a bunch of others I don't remember. No one really cared and they were mostly ignored, or briefly panned and forgotten.
But the one remake that used female actors was the one that everyone latched onto and freaked out about. Maybe it was so bad it deserved it, but it always seemed pretty suspicious that this was the only one anyone got really upset about.
I'm gonna couch this statement with "Yeah, you're on the money with that train of thought about women..." But, also I mean, most of them were just bad - let's redo the old movie and make it...
I'm gonna couch this statement with "Yeah, you're on the money with that train of thought about women..." But, also I mean, most of them were just bad - let's redo the old movie and make it modern! But so much of Ghostbusters 2016's marketing felt centered around the cringy "Men Bad" humor as well.
But, to me the movie was just not good on top of a misguided marketing campaign. It felt more like the marketing team knew it wasn't good and said "Ah, hell, just throw some feminist stuff in the marketing."
So, of course the marketing got eyes from the exact people who would hate consume everything surrounding it and, though maybe my circle is too limited, I didn't even have one female acquaintance on Facebook sharing the hype for it.
I don't recall specific trailers with that men bad stuff in it. I do recall the original trailer not making it clear that it was not in the same continuity as the original Ghostbusters, which was...
I don't recall specific trailers with that men bad stuff in it. I do recall the original trailer not making it clear that it was not in the same continuity as the original Ghostbusters, which was a huge marketing mistake which we didn't see again until Lightyear.
I do remember Feig and some of the cast having twitter meltdowns (whether understandable or not) that veered into the "lmao virgins are mad" type of thing that does not sell well to anyone.
While I didn't mind the movie overall, it's probably the worst type of humor Feig has had in a movie. It's a lot of shouting and meandering improv. Which the trailers were filled I remember the trailer ending with Leslie Jones yelling "Oh Hell No."
I did see Ghostbusters 2016 and it was aggressively mediocre. I haven't watched Afterlife or Frozen whatever, and just consider the first Ghostbusters to be a fun 80's movie that didn't need a...
I did see Ghostbusters 2016 and it was aggressively mediocre. I haven't watched Afterlife or Frozen whatever, and just consider the first Ghostbusters to be a fun 80's movie that didn't need a fucking cinematic franchise surrounding it.
Even when I was a kid, I wasn't watching The Real Ghostbusters series and imagining a vast universe outside of the original. Star Wars, sure, but not Ghostbusters.
Lightyear was pretty clear wasn't it? Everything I saw showed it was about the "real" Buzz. I can't imagine many people went into it expecting him to be a toy. Though I still feel like they missed...
Lightyear was pretty clear wasn't it? Everything I saw showed it was about the "real" Buzz. I can't imagine many people went into it expecting him to be a toy.
Though I still feel like they missed a big opportunity with the ending. When he makes that last hyperactive jump, the final shot should have been his ship landing on Andy's room.
People got confused when Chris Evans said it was based “on the real person.” So the movie is supposed to be the movie Andy sees in Toy Story, but people were confused on whether it was supposed to...
People got confused when Chris Evans said it was based “on the real person.” So the movie is supposed to be the movie Andy sees in Toy Story, but people were confused on whether it was supposed to be an actual historical figure in the Toy Story universe. Evans even addressed the confusion on Jimmy Kimmel.
That generated a lot of confusion and there were no real attempts made to clarify this until the second trailer for the film.
I still don't get how anyone could be confused by this. The first Toy Story is very clear that Buzz is like a Ninja Turtle or a GI JOE. He's a toy based on a popular kids TV series. Half the movie...
I still don't get how anyone could be confused by this. The first Toy Story is very clear that Buzz is like a Ninja Turtle or a GI JOE. He's a toy based on a popular kids TV series. Half the movie is dealing with the idea that Buzz thinks he's actually a space ranger. In the sequels we see that there's movies, video games, and other merchandising.
Then we get a trailer showing Buzz in space. What other interpretation is there besides this is about Buzz the character from all those things/ this is who toy Buzz thought he was.
This was my take on it too. The only people that I ever heard that seemed confused about it were the same ones that went up in arms about the 4-second scene where 2 ladies kiss.
This was my take on it too. The only people that I ever heard that seemed confused about it were the same ones that went up in arms about the 4-second scene where 2 ladies kiss.
The other thing is that there was already existing work that could’ve plausibly been the movies/shows that Andy watched with the Buzz Lightyear of Star Command 2D animated movie/show, both of...
The other thing is that there was already existing work that could’ve plausibly been the movies/shows that Andy watched with the Buzz Lightyear of Star Command 2D animated movie/show, both of which were reasonably successful. As far as I know the 3D movie is completely detached from those (haven’t yet seen it), which is also kind of confusing.
I saw those 2D animated Buzz cartoons, and I recalled that being the point, it's what Andy would've watched in-universe. So when the marketing for Lightyear said "this is the movie Andy saw!" I...
I saw those 2D animated Buzz cartoons, and I recalled that being the point, it's what Andy would've watched in-universe. So when the marketing for Lightyear said "this is the movie Andy saw!" I was like "HUH? What? This doesn't feel era-appropriate to be what he saw! He watched that 2D cartoon right?" I haven't seen Lightyear, but I figure that it was a script for a new IP and Pixar was like "this won't sell, let's throw one of our existing IPs onto this and make up a reason."
I don't think it specifically has to be the exact thing Andy saw. I had Ninja Turtle toys growing up and watched the first cartoon. But there's been 6 or 7 movies and about as many new cartoons...
I don't think it specifically has to be the exact thing Andy saw. I had Ninja Turtle toys growing up and watched the first cartoon. But there's been 6 or 7 movies and about as many new cartoons since then. I think we can take it as simply a movie about Buzz the space hero and not Buzz the toy.
I do get the confusion about who the movie is supposed to be for. It's a Pixar movie, but it's kinda dark and complicated for a kids movie. Adults who grew up with the first movies won't have the nostalgia since it's a fresh story with only Buzz as a returning character.
From what I heard, there's literally text at the start of the movie that says it is the thing Andy saw, right? Edit: Related to what you said, the Lightyear IP in-universe probably did have...
I don't think it specifically has to be the exact thing Andy saw.
From what I heard, there's literally text at the start of the movie that says it is the thing Andy saw, right?
Edit: Related to what you said, the Lightyear IP in-universe probably did have reboots including cartoons, live action, or CG, similar to stuff like Ninja Turtles in real life. My point stands: to my knowledge, Lightyear the movie is supposed to be the initial thing Andy saw as a kid that made him want the toy.
I'm actually something of a fan of Paul Feig. He's done some pretty cool things. I'd actually recommend anyone who has seen his Ghostbusters movie to watch The School for Good and Evil on Netflix...
I'm actually something of a fan of Paul Feig. He's done some pretty cool things. I'd actually recommend anyone who has seen his Ghostbusters movie to watch The School for Good and Evil on Netflix because it's such a 180 in terms of what it delivers.
But I don't blame anyone for hating on Ghostbusters. I actually don't think that it's a terrible movie, but it's for a very particular audience. The humor in it is very juvenile, and I think that straight men in particular would be - and were - alienated by it. Having Bill Murray in it somehow made it worse in ways that would take me volumes to express.
I also think that it would have been better if they didn't cut out that elaborate dance number to put into the ending sequence. But that's one of those things I'm probably alone in thinking.
I like Bridesmaids, The Heat, and Spy but I don’t know what happened on Ghostbusters. It’s like he fell flat on his face. He went on to make interesting stuff afterwards like A Simple Favor and...
I like Bridesmaids, The Heat, and Spy but I don’t know what happened on Ghostbusters. It’s like he fell flat on his face. He went on to make interesting stuff afterwards like A Simple Favor and Last Christmas. To mixed results but A Simple Favor was a decent thriller.
Sexism no doubt plays a role but also, and I feel so brave and edgy for saying this, they were asking for it. A lot of effort went into LOOK, IT'S ALL WOMEN, MADE BY WOMEN!! without really saying...
But the one remake that used female actors was the one that everyone latched onto and freaked out about. Maybe it was so bad it deserved it, but it always seemed pretty suspicious that this was the only one anyone got really upset about.
Sexism no doubt plays a role but also, and I feel so brave and edgy for saying this, they were asking for it. A lot of effort went into LOOK, IT'S ALL WOMEN, MADE BY WOMEN!! without really saying why we should care. Genderswapping is not wrong, but it has little value on its own and it's lazy. I remember a picture of a big crew that worked on the film, all women, holding some poster saying so, so of course that's going to get mocked when the movie is bad, and I honestly think any identity would be if there was such an emphasis put on it.
When everything else seems aggressively mediocre from the very beginning, and in a time when girlboss unnecessarily combative "online feminism" was probably at its peak, making an obvious effort to ride that wave in a seemingly empty corporate fashion... Yeah, you're going to trigger people.
I don't think this context happened with the other examples you mention, but feel free to correct me because shitty remakes are very far from my passion.
There was also an amplifying factor because saying the movie was not that great, or more often, not as good as the originals was sometimes responded to with "it's probably because you're sexist"....
Sexism no doubt plays a role but also, and I feel so brave and edgy for saying this, they were asking for it. A lot of effort went into LOOK, IT'S ALL WOMEN, MADE BY WOMEN!! without really saying why we should care.
There was also an amplifying factor because saying the movie was not that great, or more often, not as good as the originals was sometimes responded to with "it's probably because you're sexist".
A loud minority, but certainly something I witnessed a lot about the discussion, and really was the whole goal of the marketing campaign. They knew they made something that was trying to cash in on a previous IP (which is seldom of any quality), and they knew that hyping up the "gimmick" of an all female cast would both get it headlines and create discourse among the loud and obnoxious sections of social media.
I was seeing reviewers trying to criticize the movie while also several times stating they are not against women in the industry, which really shouldn't be necessary to do. I think that kind of...
I was seeing reviewers trying to criticize the movie while also several times stating they are not against women in the industry, which really shouldn't be necessary to do. I think that kind of marketing focus actually hurts more than it helps, because it creates sort of an expectation that women in the movie industry has to be extraordinary! It must be amazing. Whereas we have a plethora of average mediocre male filmmakers that are allowed to just exist without a ton people trying to pick apart every small mistake they make. The road to more gender diversity in the film industry is to also have plenty of average and mediocre - and bad films made by women.
Bit of a tangent, but I hear some similar from female IT-professionals sometimes. They feel like they have to really standout and perform above and beyond to be accepted, whereas there are a million male tech workers that are just breezing by being average. While some focus on the issue is needed, I think too much focus hurts more when small missteps will be torn apart if you have a different gender than the dominant.
The only similar one I remember was the all female Oceans 11 spinoff. I think it was mostly ignored. Personally I'd attribute this to Oceans 11 already having some pretty bad sequels so maybe fans...
The only similar one I remember was the all female Oceans 11 spinoff. I think it was mostly ignored. Personally I'd attribute this to Oceans 11 already having some pretty bad sequels so maybe fans felt like this one wasn't really ruining anything.
Oceans 8 was very successful. Made nearly 300M worldwide against a budget of 70M. Its the playbook on how to do an all female version of something. Where it didn’t alienate male audiences, and...
Oceans 8 was very successful. Made nearly 300M worldwide against a budget of 70M. Its the playbook on how to do an all female version of something. Where it didn’t alienate male audiences, and there was really only one line of dialogue that had a “girl power” flavor to it.
I personally like Oceans 12 and 13 more than it, but it was good. I actually saw that before I saw any of the Soderbergh films.
The biggest issue with the 2016 one was that it was a reboot. It didn't have to be a reboot. They wouldn't have had to make it a full-on sequel, just acknowledge in a few sentences that the...
The 2016 Ghostbuster stuff was always an odd thing for me. I didn't watch it until two years ago, but it was so odd how that became a culture war thing.
The biggest issue with the 2016 one was that it was a reboot. It didn't have to be a reboot.
They wouldn't have had to make it a full-on sequel, just acknowledge in a few sentences that the previous ones exist in the same universe. Didn't even need cameos.
But nope, they wanted to reboot it with a fresh cast and failed.
Archived.
I haven't watched Ghostbusters in a very long time but I am familiar with the phenomenon of people expecting way too much from a franchise. Like reviewers faulting super-hero movies for their lack of sophistication and profound social commentary.
Would you say a Ribeye is bad because it is not Japanese A5 Wagyu? No! They're in different categories!
Most recently, A Monk Movie was perfectly fine and people are decrying it for being, essentially, a very long episode of Monk. I was perfectly content. What did people expect? Godfather?
Thank you for bringing me awareness of The Monk Movie.
Sounds like a good evening watch.
I loved it. It's really was just like a long episode of Monk. They didn't try to make any big statements about how San Francisco is different now than it was when the show first aired, but didn't ignore that the movie takes place long after the show.
I'm not nostalgic, so I don't have as much expectations for the franchise. Afterlife was pretty good imo. It was fun and bridged the old series in a decent way. You need that bridge with a series like this. The important thing is where you go from there.
Frozen Empire was okay. There were several plot lines that did not coalesce in a great way. Unlike Afterlife, the vision for Frozen Empire did not seem clear. So much like Star Wars movies after Force Awakens, this sequel was not a great followup.
On the other side of that, Creed does a great job of taking an old franchise and bringing it to the modern era. Ryan Coogler is an excellent director. So it is possible for modern sequels to old franchises to excel. That being said, it is especially difficult.
To bring it back to your example, I love the Monk TV show. The ending of the series is incredible. I literally needed nothing after that series finale. The movie I had doubts about. Just because of how difficult it is to do followups like that. The movie turned out alright. The criticism is that it's one long episode is dumb. But that's not to say other criticisms aren't fair.
So I think it's fair to have expectations for these kinds of movies. The ones who will support it are the fans. But I think it's important for there to be a good reason to make these things and the right person to herald it. If a franchise is good or great, then I would rather it be left alone than have a bad or mediocre followup.
This is from David Sims, the co-host of the Blank Check podcast. I used to listen to it during the pandemic but haven't kept up on it since then. And my perception on film has somewhat diverged from a lot of the fanbase of that podcast. You can read their discussion of this article on their subreddit.
The 2016 Ghostbuster stuff was always an odd thing for me. I didn't watch it until two years ago, but it was so odd how that became a culture war thing. On both sides. Liberals going hard on defending the film was always funny to see. I didn't mind the film but I think about some of the defenses of it (including that it was better than the original) and it's hilarious in retrospect.
The thing I disagree with in this article is the framing of Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Yes it was made as a response to the 2016 film, but it's box office being the same as the 2016 film doesn't count. If the pandemic didn't happen Afterlife would have absolutely outgrossed the 2016 film. Another problem with that framing is that the 2016 film cost nearly twice as much to produce as Afterlife. I also disagree that that film only appealed to hardcore aging fans, since I liked the film and I'm not a Ghostbusters fanatic or anything. I think it's just a decent piece of entertainment which was much better made than the 2016 film (unsurprisingly since Jason Reitman is an Oscar nominee after all).
I don't think the legacy sequel is coming to an end necessarily. But I do think the specific nostalgia hype machine targeted at GenX white dudes (Star Wars/Ghostbusters/Indiana Jones/The Flash) is over. Especially if the films don't stand on their own. Which is why I think something like Beetlejuice is different, since the original film has a more female fanbase (from what I've noticed anyway) or Twister which isn't specifically hyped by that Ghostbusters demo.
I still haven't seen it, but I remember the furor. My take was that around the same time there was a bad Ninja Turtles remake, a bad Robocop remake, multiple bad Transformers remakes, a bad Total Recall remake, and probably a bunch of others I don't remember. No one really cared and they were mostly ignored, or briefly panned and forgotten.
But the one remake that used female actors was the one that everyone latched onto and freaked out about. Maybe it was so bad it deserved it, but it always seemed pretty suspicious that this was the only one anyone got really upset about.
I'm gonna couch this statement with "Yeah, you're on the money with that train of thought about women..." But, also I mean, most of them were just bad - let's redo the old movie and make it modern! But so much of Ghostbusters 2016's marketing felt centered around the cringy "Men Bad" humor as well.
But, to me the movie was just not good on top of a misguided marketing campaign. It felt more like the marketing team knew it wasn't good and said "Ah, hell, just throw some feminist stuff in the marketing."
So, of course the marketing got eyes from the exact people who would hate consume everything surrounding it and, though maybe my circle is too limited, I didn't even have one female acquaintance on Facebook sharing the hype for it.
I don't recall specific trailers with that men bad stuff in it. I do recall the original trailer not making it clear that it was not in the same continuity as the original Ghostbusters, which was a huge marketing mistake which we didn't see again until Lightyear.
I do remember Feig and some of the cast having twitter meltdowns (whether understandable or not) that veered into the "lmao virgins are mad" type of thing that does not sell well to anyone.
While I didn't mind the movie overall, it's probably the worst type of humor Feig has had in a movie. It's a lot of shouting and meandering improv. Which the trailers were filled I remember the trailer ending with Leslie Jones yelling "Oh Hell No."
I did see Ghostbusters 2016 and it was aggressively mediocre. I haven't watched Afterlife or Frozen whatever, and just consider the first Ghostbusters to be a fun 80's movie that didn't need a fucking cinematic franchise surrounding it.
Even when I was a kid, I wasn't watching The Real Ghostbusters series and imagining a vast universe outside of the original. Star Wars, sure, but not Ghostbusters.
Lightyear was pretty clear wasn't it? Everything I saw showed it was about the "real" Buzz. I can't imagine many people went into it expecting him to be a toy.
Though I still feel like they missed a big opportunity with the ending. When he makes that last hyperactive jump, the final shot should have been his ship landing on Andy's room.
People got confused when Chris Evans said it was based “on the real person.” So the movie is supposed to be the movie Andy sees in Toy Story, but people were confused on whether it was supposed to be an actual historical figure in the Toy Story universe. Evans even addressed the confusion on Jimmy Kimmel.
That generated a lot of confusion and there were no real attempts made to clarify this until the second trailer for the film.
I still don't get how anyone could be confused by this. The first Toy Story is very clear that Buzz is like a Ninja Turtle or a GI JOE. He's a toy based on a popular kids TV series. Half the movie is dealing with the idea that Buzz thinks he's actually a space ranger. In the sequels we see that there's movies, video games, and other merchandising.
Then we get a trailer showing Buzz in space. What other interpretation is there besides this is about Buzz the character from all those things/ this is who toy Buzz thought he was.
This was my take on it too. The only people that I ever heard that seemed confused about it were the same ones that went up in arms about the 4-second scene where 2 ladies kiss.
The other thing is that there was already existing work that could’ve plausibly been the movies/shows that Andy watched with the Buzz Lightyear of Star Command 2D animated movie/show, both of which were reasonably successful. As far as I know the 3D movie is completely detached from those (haven’t yet seen it), which is also kind of confusing.
I saw those 2D animated Buzz cartoons, and I recalled that being the point, it's what Andy would've watched in-universe. So when the marketing for Lightyear said "this is the movie Andy saw!" I was like "HUH? What? This doesn't feel era-appropriate to be what he saw! He watched that 2D cartoon right?" I haven't seen Lightyear, but I figure that it was a script for a new IP and Pixar was like "this won't sell, let's throw one of our existing IPs onto this and make up a reason."
I don't think it specifically has to be the exact thing Andy saw. I had Ninja Turtle toys growing up and watched the first cartoon. But there's been 6 or 7 movies and about as many new cartoons since then. I think we can take it as simply a movie about Buzz the space hero and not Buzz the toy.
I do get the confusion about who the movie is supposed to be for. It's a Pixar movie, but it's kinda dark and complicated for a kids movie. Adults who grew up with the first movies won't have the nostalgia since it's a fresh story with only Buzz as a returning character.
From what I heard, there's literally text at the start of the movie that says it is the thing Andy saw, right?
Edit: Related to what you said, the Lightyear IP in-universe probably did have reboots including cartoons, live action, or CG, similar to stuff like Ninja Turtles in real life. My point stands: to my knowledge, Lightyear the movie is supposed to be the initial thing Andy saw as a kid that made him want the toy.
That’s correct
I'm actually something of a fan of Paul Feig. He's done some pretty cool things. I'd actually recommend anyone who has seen his Ghostbusters movie to watch The School for Good and Evil on Netflix because it's such a 180 in terms of what it delivers.
But I don't blame anyone for hating on Ghostbusters. I actually don't think that it's a terrible movie, but it's for a very particular audience. The humor in it is very juvenile, and I think that straight men in particular would be - and were - alienated by it. Having Bill Murray in it somehow made it worse in ways that would take me volumes to express.
I also think that it would have been better if they didn't cut out that elaborate dance number to put into the ending sequence. But that's one of those things I'm probably alone in thinking.
I like Bridesmaids, The Heat, and Spy but I don’t know what happened on Ghostbusters. It’s like he fell flat on his face. He went on to make interesting stuff afterwards like A Simple Favor and Last Christmas. To mixed results but A Simple Favor was a decent thriller.
Sexism no doubt plays a role but also, and I feel so brave and edgy for saying this, they were asking for it. A lot of effort went into LOOK, IT'S ALL WOMEN, MADE BY WOMEN!! without really saying why we should care. Genderswapping is not wrong, but it has little value on its own and it's lazy. I remember a picture of a big crew that worked on the film, all women, holding some poster saying so, so of course that's going to get mocked when the movie is bad, and I honestly think any identity would be if there was such an emphasis put on it.
When everything else seems aggressively mediocre from the very beginning, and in a time when girlboss unnecessarily combative "online feminism" was probably at its peak, making an obvious effort to ride that wave in a seemingly empty corporate fashion... Yeah, you're going to trigger people.
I don't think this context happened with the other examples you mention, but feel free to correct me because shitty remakes are very far from my passion.
There was also an amplifying factor because saying the movie was not that great, or more often, not as good as the originals was sometimes responded to with "it's probably because you're sexist".
A loud minority, but certainly something I witnessed a lot about the discussion, and really was the whole goal of the marketing campaign. They knew they made something that was trying to cash in on a previous IP (which is seldom of any quality), and they knew that hyping up the "gimmick" of an all female cast would both get it headlines and create discourse among the loud and obnoxious sections of social media.
I was seeing reviewers trying to criticize the movie while also several times stating they are not against women in the industry, which really shouldn't be necessary to do. I think that kind of marketing focus actually hurts more than it helps, because it creates sort of an expectation that women in the movie industry has to be extraordinary! It must be amazing. Whereas we have a plethora of average mediocre male filmmakers that are allowed to just exist without a ton people trying to pick apart every small mistake they make. The road to more gender diversity in the film industry is to also have plenty of average and mediocre - and bad films made by women.
Bit of a tangent, but I hear some similar from female IT-professionals sometimes. They feel like they have to really standout and perform above and beyond to be accepted, whereas there are a million male tech workers that are just breezing by being average. While some focus on the issue is needed, I think too much focus hurts more when small missteps will be torn apart if you have a different gender than the dominant.
The only similar one I remember was the all female Oceans 11 spinoff. I think it was mostly ignored. Personally I'd attribute this to Oceans 11 already having some pretty bad sequels so maybe fans felt like this one wasn't really ruining anything.
Oceans 8 was very successful. Made nearly 300M worldwide against a budget of 70M. Its the playbook on how to do an all female version of something. Where it didn’t alienate male audiences, and there was really only one line of dialogue that had a “girl power” flavor to it.
I personally like Oceans 12 and 13 more than it, but it was good. I actually saw that before I saw any of the Soderbergh films.
I liked it, but I love pretty much any heist movie. I'd go 11,8,13,12 if I had to rank them.
The biggest issue with the 2016 one was that it was a reboot. It didn't have to be a reboot.
They wouldn't have had to make it a full-on sequel, just acknowledge in a few sentences that the previous ones exist in the same universe. Didn't even need cameos.
But nope, they wanted to reboot it with a fresh cast and failed.