First we had the all female Ghostbusters, now Sandra Bullock has confirmed that she will be leading an all female cast in a remake of 2001’s Ocean’s Eleven, itself a remake of the original rat pack heist film.
This follows on from Ocean’s Eleven star George Clooney’s comments concerning re-writing roles originally intended for men: “There’s a lot more out there if people just started thinking. You’ll see this happening a lot, where they talk about there aren’t a lot of great roles for women. The truth of the matter is there are plenty of these films where you can stop and look and just change the gender and make a really interesting film. So we need to start thinking that way.”
Remember when the classic film remake or reboot gimmick was that you could finally see it in 3D? Or that the script had been brought forward to the present day, perhaps with added tongue-in-cheek jokes about the era of the original film. Now it seems the latest gimmick is to cast all women. If another all women remake is announced this year that will make it a trend.
Of course it’s great to see more women taking the leads in films, it seems long overdue considering the new Ghostbusters cast of accomplished comedy actresses have received misogynist abuse for their casting. However it would be great to see more original scripts written for women, rather than gender flipped remakes because the implication is that male roles (whether played by a man or a woman) are by default funnier, cleverer and more desirable than female.
It seems Ocean’s Eleven, while a popular film, does not hold the same place in the public’s heart as Ghostbusters and as yet no-one has claimed their childhood memories have been destroyed by the planned remake. We will see what happens when Hollywood announces the all female remake of The Hangover.
