A Franchise Character By Any Other Name Is Still A Flower But Often No Longer A Rose

Is Hollywood out of ideas and woke?

Hollywood was never as original as it thought it was. A significant amount of hits were based on books or plays. And those got changed drastically. It's just that books and plays were less popular. So it was only the book readers who complained when characters were changed. And movies were new. So there wasn't a history of old movie IP with the kind of mass market appeal to remake.

So then the franchises that did exist were based on the cast of actors who since they were physical people couldn't be swapped. There were twenty-eight BLONDIE (from the comic strip) movies. Six THIN MAN movies. Or acting couples, Bogie & Bacall, Hepburn & Tracy, Astaire & Rogers, Hudson & Day. A lot of these franchise movies made were under the studio system where the studios owned the actors' contracts.

And the move away from these franchise changed when the Studio System collapsed. And actors became freelance players. And we got virtual franchises with the locus on the actor. So even if an action movie was not part of a franchise you knew what a Bruce Willis action movie was vs what an Arnold movie was. But instead the virtual franchises shared a flavor rather than the formulas like under the Studio System. But like the cast based franchises you can't race (or otherwise) swap.

Except for James Bond...

So eventually the studios found themselves with a back catalog of former blockbusters (or virtual blockbusters in terms of familiarity thanks to tv and video). And a situation akin to the Studio System. But this time instead of owning the actors they owned the characters. And the characters had enough cultural familiarity built up to carry the franchise with a different actor in the role. But unlike adapting books and plays where only the relatively small number of people were familiar with the source material to complain. Now everyone had seen (or were familiar with) the source material.¹

Which had previously only existed for James Bond. And every new Bond carried with it a large fan controversy which spanned decades. So adapting old works and trying to make franchises isn't new. And how they manifest is mostly about how the studios own capital (contracts vs IP). And drastically changing characters in adaptations isn't some new woke conspiracy. Although the trend towards diversity is likely a mix of trying to tap into expanding markets as well as woke pressure. Similarly, fans getting mad about character changes has always existed. Although, race/ gender swapping is particularly jarring² and carries a host of other political weight.

Part of the end result of this is that actors no longer have the clout to deliver movies on their own. Which limits their ability to make indie movies low key hits on the strength of their reputations (in addition to issues with streaming).

1. Which also was usually not the source, but itself an adaptation (eg the original Danish LITTLE MERMAID wasn't set in the Caribbean and itself was prob an adaptation of some oral tradition).

2. I can't watch THE FRONT PAGE because to me Hildy Johnson will always be a woman from HIS GIRL FRIDAY. Even though she is a he in the original.