10 Times Hollywood Pissed Off Fanboys (And Then Proved Them Wrong)
When filmmakers serve haters a big old slice of humble pie.
As reviews for the unnecessarily controversial Ghostbusters reboot continue to defy online expectations and proclaim the female-led remake a success, the fanboys trying to run a smear campaign against the project are being forced to admit that maybe they were wrong. Early reactions from the Rotten Tomatoes critics currently have the film sitting on a 78% approval rating on the website, a far cry from the huge splat many had predicted.
It isn't the first time that a group of fans have banded together to rally against a decision made by Hollywood, and it certainly won't be the last time fanboys cause a stir about their property of choice, but is this level of fanaticism beneficial to any franchise? Fandom is a brilliant thing, bringing together like-minded people so that they can celebrate their passion for something they love, though it often encourages delusions of fan-ownership and hinders change.
A fan can spend decades following a franchise and still not necessarily know what is best for it, though years of fandom service seems to give some fanboys the impression that their opinion is the only one worth listening to. Of course, a lot of the time the fanboys get it right (when they bemoaned George Clooney's casting as Batman, for example) though sometimes Hollywood is forced to ignore them for their own good.
From risky casting decisions and suspect adaptations to more unwanted reboots, here are ten times that Hollywood enraged fanboys only to make them eat their words...
10. When Disney Bought Marvel Studios
When Disney announced back in 2009 that they had paid a staggering $4 billion for Marvel Studios, fans of the comics weren't the only ones to pour scorn on the sale. As fans of Marvel's properties began to voice their anger over what they saw as a move that would inevitably water-down and ruin their favourite characters, industry commentators also questioned whether the franchise was worth such a large amount of money.
In the end, the doubters were proven wrong on both accounts. Now the most profitable movie franchise in history, the Marvel Cinematic Universe single-handedly changed the direction of cinema, and it did it while staying as faithful as possible to the source material, something Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige believes is central to the success of the franchise.
Prior to the MCU, movies based on Marvel comics got it wrong a lot more than they got it right, with some truly terrible adaptations made over the years, from Howard the Duck in 1986 to the abysmal Ghost Rider in 2007. Disney brought some much needed respectability to Marvel, and their success is even more impressive when you consider that they were essentially working with leftovers at the time.
Without access to some of Marvel's most recognisable names (Sony were still making the most of having the rights to Spider-Man and 20th Century Fox were in the early stages of developing their X-Men universe) Disney essentially took a group of characters lesser known to a general audience and turned them into the world's favourite superheros.
Fanboys went from being fully against Disney's Marvel to knowing it would work all along almost immediately after Iron Man (2008) announced the studio's intentions, and now, thirteen films in, they defend the franchise vehemently.