Hollywood reboots: why do some succeed and others tank at the box office?

WITH revivals planned for Star Wars, Ghostbusters, Jurassic Park and many more classic movies, it’s time to ask: why do some reboots succeed while others tank at the box office?

The most eagerly-awaited reboot ever? ... John Boyega is set to star in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Will director JJ Abrams get the formula right?

HOLLYWOOD has fallen in love with the reboot.

Revivals have been pumped out in increasing numbers over the past decade — on screens both big and small — and there are plans to breathe new life into a bunch of older classic series, including Star Wars, Ghostbusters, Jurassic Park, The X Files, The Fantastic Four and Indiana Jones.

NEW STAR WARS: Trailer for The Force Awakens released

GHOSTBUSTERS: All-female cast revealed

JURASSIC PARK: A first look at what’s in store

Hollywood is also looking to reboot other films that never led on to sequels at the time of their first release, including Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal.

But the revival game is fraught with peril. Some are huge hits, while others tank badly and ruin careers.

So what are the rules for a successful movie franchise reboot?

Stand out performers in iconic roles ... Margot Kidder and Christopher Reeve in Superman (1978).

1. Nail the casting

THE first lesson for all aspiring rebooters: cast the right actors for the right roles. The original version of the movie being rebooted undoubtedly featured iconic characters played by actors who audiences loved — so don’t mess that up with some scenery-chewing nobody phoning it in.

Case in point: Superman Returns (2006). Bryan Singer cast the eminently forgettable Brandon Routh and the equally bland Kate Bosworth in roles that had been comprehensively nailed by Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder in the original films. The result? One big box-office turkey.

Forgettable ... Kate Bosworth and Brandon Routh in Superman Returns (2006).

The 2008 reboot of the Indiana Jones franchise, The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, tried to pass the baton from Indy (Harrison Ford) to his long-forgotten son Mutt (Shia LaBeouf) but audiences didn’t buy it, and proposed sequels never eventuated.

Successfully rebooted franchises have all featured actors who were quickly accepted by new audiences: think Chris Pine and Zachary Qunito as Kirk and Spock in Star Trek (2009), Christian Bale in Batman Begins (2005), and Daniel Craig as James Bond in Casino Royale (2006).

Hang on Spidey ... does the world need another reboot of the Spider-Man franchise?

2. Allow some time to pass

THE audience has to be really hungry for that reboot. The memory of the original series has to have faded sufficiently, its bumps and defects softened by the effect of nostalgia.

Star Trek fans had to wait an entire generation for their beloved TV series to return to the small screen in the aptly named Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987). Similarly, Doctor Who afficionadoes were deprived of their favourite time traveller for a solid 16 years before the show got a top-to-bottom overhaul in 2005.

Spider-Man met with the opposite fate: his quick return to movie screens resulted in small profits for the studio.

A mere five years separated the last of the Tobey Maguire Spidey films (Spider-Man 3, released in 2007) with the first film starring Andrew Garfield as the web-spinning hero (The Amazing Spider-Man, 2012).

Although the rebooted franchise stretched to a sequel in 2014, studio execs were disappointed in its box office takings, and have reportedly been in talks with Sony about integrating the character into future instalments of The Avengers series.

Humanoid ... Tricia Helfer as one of the new Cylons in the rebooted series.

Shiny ... one of the original Cylons terrorising humans in Battlestar Galactica.

3. Add a cool new twist

THIS is the tricky task for all prospective rebooters: adding an element to an existing story that appeals to both new audiences and diehard tragics. The TV revival of Battlestar Galactica (2004) swung on the idea that the enemies of the humans, the Cylons, had perfected the technology to make them pass as human. In Doctor Who, the rebooted series (2005) re-positioned the Doctor not just as a lone adventurer, but as the sole survivor of a war that had obliterated his race.

Other reboots have stuck to the original formula a bit too faithfully, and suffered accordingly.

Tim Burton’s remake of Planet of the Apes (2001) was not dissimilar to the plot of the 1968 original (although it had a markedly different ending), whereas the James Franco vehicle Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) offered viewers a new take on a story they knew well. It’s no coincidence that the latter film spawned a sequel, whereas the Tim Burton version remains a one-off.

The latest iteration of the Superman story, Man of Steel (2013) also echoed the 1978 original in many respects — perhaps too many. It’s interesting to note that the character will next appear in Batman v Superman: The Dawn of Justice in 2016, rather than Man of Steel II.

Sensationally silly ... Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr Freeze in Batman and Robin (1997).

4. Go dark

MOVIE sequels tend to obey two laws: they tend to provide diminishing returns for their studios, and they get increasingly silly. Compare the slapstick of the later Supermanand Jaws films with the drama of the originals, or consider the altogether-too-cute Ewoks (capable of killing Stormtroopers with rocks and their little claws, apparently!) in the third Star Wars film, Return of the Jedi.

A similar thing happened to Batman. Tim Burton had created a dark and disturbing cinematic Gotham for Batman (1990), but the campery and silliness associated with the 1960s TV series had crept back in by the time of Batman Forever (1995) and its gloriously over-the-top successor, Batman and Robin (1997).

It was up to Christopher Nolan to take Batman back to the darkness with Batman Begins (2005) — and that tone has been sustained in its two follow-ups. Will the Dark Knight stay dark with Ben Affleck in the title role in next year’s Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice? Time will tell.

From the depths ... Heath Ledger’s portrayal of The Joker in The Dark Knight (2008) exemplified the darkness of the Chrsitopher Nolan Batman trilogy.

5. Explore the origins

IF a movie series has exhausted every angle, taking the series back to its origin point cannot only revive audience interest, it can also allow a film maker to cast younger, possibly cuter actors in place of older heavyweights.

Think Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy or Michael Fassbender in X Men: First Class (2011) and X Men: Days of Future Past (2014), or the extremely lithe Andrew Garfield replacing Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man.

The original ... Rebecca Romijn-Stamos as Mystique in X-Men 2 (2003).

Younger version ... Jennifer Lawrence in X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014).

Batman’s origins have been revisited time and again, most recently in the new TV series Gotham (2014).

The Avengers series of films has sequels set to roll out until 2019, but you can pretty much expect to see junior versions of Thor, Hulk, Black Widow and the rest cropping up at some point.

For the fans ... Zachary Qunito as Spock and Chris Pine as Kirk in Star Trek Into Darkness (2013).

6. Thrill the fans

SPOLIER alert. You know that moment in JJ Abrams’ Star Trek (2007) when Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) is rescued on the ice planet by a man who turns out to be Spock — as in, the original, Leonard Nimoy Spock? That’s the kind of moment that diehard fans live for — little fragments of nostalgia — something that drew them to the series in the first place — offered to them in a surprising, unexpected way. All movie reboots should have a magic moment like that.

New rules ... Daniel Craig as James Bond in Casino Royale (2006).

7. Stomp on a few shibboleths

THE older and more well-loved a movie franchise, the more it can get bogged down in its

history. Rules spring up about characters, or situations, or the universe in which the series is set, and soon become canon.

Smart script writers and directors know that not all of these shibboleths need to be slavishly followed when rebooting a successful movie franchise.

For a masterclass in how this is handled, consider the first in the Daniel Craig James Bond films, Casino Royale. That movie managed to smash a couple of “rules” that ultimately did the story no favours — including such fripperies as the character’s hair colour, and his favourite drink.

In that movie, when asked by a bartender whether he wanted his martini “shaken or stirred”, Bond replies: “Do I look like I give a damn?”

It was more than just a cheap laugh — it was a reminder to audiences that this was a new take on an old story, that new rules applied, and as a result: they had to keep watching.