10 Bandwagons Hollywood Couldn't Resist Jumping On

6. Dark And Gritty Reboots

Reboots, remakes, re-imaginings or re-interpretations; it seems that if a movie has the 're' prefix in front of it then it will be directly influenced by Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins. A more realistic and serious take on the Caped Crusader, Nolan's superhero movie has since become the yardstick by which all reboots are now compared. Given the constant stream of existing properties that are being recycled for audiences, it's difficult to remember if there was a time when reboots weren't dark and gritty. There are countless filmmakers that have name-checked Batman Begins as the example when discussing an upcoming origin story or reboot; the people behind Casino Royale, Robocop, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, G.I Joe, Godzilla, The Amazing Spider-Man and obviously Man of Steel to name but a very small few. It seems that because it worked so well once, the 'grounded and realistic' treatment will therefore apply to every franchise in need of an update, but more often that not the results are less than stellar. While it may have worked for Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Godzilla, they seem to be exceptions to the rule and in recent years things have started to become repetitively tedious. Unfortunately, the trend looks set to continue for a while yet; Dracula Untold recently gave the title character a completely unnecessary dark and gritty reboot, while a recent pitch being touted around Hollywood was offering the same treatment to Zorro of all people! It would be a real turn-up for the books if Hollywood mixed it up for a change and announced a reboot that wasn't described with the words 'dark', 'gritty', 'serious' or 'grounded'. We can but hope...