Fight Club: Five movies that need a gender-swapped reboot
Ocean’s 8 premiered last year. We were hyped for it but not that impressed. The heist movie sporting the talents of Sandra Bullock (Gravity), Cate Blanchett (Carol), Rihanna (Battleship), Anne Hathaway (The Dark Knight Rises), and Mindy Kaling (A Wrinkle in Time) at the heart of it seemed like a no brainer.
Ostensibly a gender-flipped remake of Steven Soderbergh’s original Ocean’s movies, Ocean’s 8 broke the rules of the boys’ club to push women to the front. It got us wondering how many other badass movies would be different if the rules were shaken up a bit and the gender were flipped for the main characters. Here are five we think could have been straight-up baller with women as leads.
Taxi Driver
If you know nothing else of Taxi Driver, you know one infamous scene. Robert De Niro (Goodfellas) standing in front of the mirror, practicing pulling his gun. Now imagine Diane Keaton (Annie Hall) in front of that mirror.
Instead of De Niro, she has fixated on Cybill Shepherd (Moonlighting) and obscenely underage Jodie Foster (Bugsy Malone) and become more and more detached from reality while building a pretty disturbing gun collection and kill list. The story of a sociopathic lesbian taxi driver on a mission to kill? Greenlight this.
Fight Club
What’s the first rule of Fight Club? Who cares? Remember that thing we said about rules? Yeah that.
What if Angelina Jolie (Maleficent) and Gwyneth Paltrow (Iron Man) had edged out Edward Norton (American History X) and Brad Pitt (Fury) in the audition room. Angie would play the unhinged side of Gwynnie and these ladies would beat the shit out of each other on multiple occasions while forming a club to promote physical violence as a self-help tool.
That is, until Gwyneth realizes she’s got a pretty serious mental illness and is a danger to herself and others so tries to shoot herself in the face. We would watch the shit out of this.
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
Let’s replace Jack Nicholson (The Departed) with Meryl Streep (Mamma Mia!). A repeat criminal in for statutory rape of a 15-year-old, she doesn’t want to do hard labor on a prison farm so fakes her way into what she assumes will be a cushy stay in a mental hospital.
Of course, this is not the case and shit gets real. Meryl/Randle can’t help but challenge authority. Meryl’s antics land her and the other inmates in increasingly hot water until ultimately she is smothered in her sleep by a sympathetic inmate after it’s discovered she’s been lobotomized. Yes please.
Boogie Nights
We hesitate to replace Marky Mark (Ted) (come on – perfect casting) but let’s throw Jennifer Lopez (Gigli) in there just for kicks. Jenny portrays a high school dropout turned porn star who finds success by redefining the genre before losing everything to a drug habit and getting into a gun battle with a coke dealer, then mounting a comeback several years later.
This isn’t the story of a girl getting exploited and tossed away – it’s the story of a young woman finding her place, making a bunch of bad choices, and getting back on top . . . like a boss.
The Graduate
What if (go with us, here) Audrey Hepburn (Breakfast at Tiffanys) edged out Dustin Hoffman (Midnight Cowboy) for the role of Benjamin Braddock? The innately awkward Benjamin / Audrey is adrift after university and ends up killing time by having an affair with the neighbor, Mrs. Robinson.
Fantastic, until Benjamin’s parents basically force her to go on a date with Mrs. Robinson’s daughter Elaine, who despite being treated horribly on said date and taken to a strip club ends up going on more dates with Benjamin and falling in love with her!
She finds out about Ben and her mom but after Ben stalks her for a while, Elaine leaves her fiance at the altar and we are left with that iconic scene of Ben (now played by Audrey) and Elaine sitting at the back of the bus with Simon and Garfunkel playing. Classic.
Nicholas
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Just no. No.
December 18, 2019Shaylamar Marie Fowler
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Why don’t they just make awesome original female characters that can stand on their own? Don’t we deserve that?
Is humanity out of imagination?
December 18, 2019Johnny
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All bad ideas
December 21, 2019Johnny
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Agreed
December 21, 2019No name
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Or here’s an idea.
How about making your own movie ideas if you want them to be focused solely on Gender.
I’m fucking sick & tired of lazy cunt producers just “gender swapping” already existing movies… that term and anyone that uses it should be fucking shot.
Imagine thinking it’s acceptable to just “gender-swap” things because you’re too fucking lazy to come up with good ideas.
You’re telling me there’s not a single great film idea related to the womens marches you can come up with? Instead you have to try and show female “strength” by being completely unrealistic and having women have their own fight club.
Here’s an idea for a TV show that I just thought of… it’s called Reality Strikes, & the premise is that you put fully grown male athletes against fully grown female athletes of the same sports, & you pit them against each other every week, with a different sport.
And the end game is that after 20 episodes in a row of women getting absolutely destroyed by the men at every single sport (hence why they put you in the B leagues) you’ll all eventually shut the fuck up and stop trying to portay women as “physically strong” in film and TV when on average, they’re not… they’re weak as piss.
I would MUCH rather see films which focus on the ACTUAL strengths of women, or maybe a film about a great woman in history that had strength of character and overcame difficulties.
Not a horseshit film where I’m supposed to believe that a woman can beat up 5 men that are all 6’4 and she’s 5’5…. When in reality they’d knock her the fuck out and probably rape her.
December 23, 2019Mike
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Leave these movies alone. Ghostbusters sucked, oceans 8 sucked. New Teminator sucked. Nobody wants these woke gender swapping feminist bullshit movies. That’s why they bomb. Give us an original strong female lead, and it will prevail
December 25, 2019Kevin Feige
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we would watch the shit out of that? that just tells me u havent got anything of the Plot of fightclub… it is a Film which wouldnt work with female characters in the fundamental of it´s story… stop the white knighting author of the article. go to the gym, build some muscles, act like a douche and enjoy some pussy for gods sake
December 25, 2019Marc
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Get Woke, Go Broke
February 27, 2020Mac Donald
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Not only is this a stupid idea and the authors of this dumb post most probably know it, but the writing and idea are outright disrespectful towards the actors, directors and anybody involved with any of the movies in this list.
Re-evaluate your values please, for I am sick and tired of seeing these dumb and offensive articles. I know you just want money, and this idiotic and clickbaity writing style is the best way to get it, but don’t you value your job more than that? Is this really the only thing that you want to be remembered for? Doesn’t your job matter to you more than this? If it does then please think about what you have written long and hard, then make a change.
April 18, 2020