When should a comic book movie franchise reboot?

[The Overlord]

When should a comic book movie franchise reboot? We have seen success with reboots before, like with Batman Begins 8 years after Batman and Robin, but the Hellboy reboot movie bombed at the box office, Man of Steel was rather lackluster, the Amazing Spider-Man reboot ultimately failed, but Spider-Man Homecoming did well.

 

[Erzengel]

When a Studio is trying to keep the rights to a character and just tries to get any movie out........

 

[OutOfBoose]

After 5 films max.

 

[Mandon Knight]

As soon as Joel Schumacher has signed on to direct the most recent iteration of said character.

 

[MbJ]

Hellboy's failure isn't surprising, because Hellboy was never a particularly popular franchise in the first place. With a franchise like Spider-Man and Batman, yeah, it makes sense to reboot since they have a proven box office track record. With Hellboy, even the Del Toro movies, gorgeous as they are, were always cult hits at best.

Has there ever been a reboot of an unsuccessful film that took off and was a huge hit?

 

[Milk Tray Guy]

Unless ticket sales are seriously waning and/or overall quality is dropping I don't see there's any set period of time. If the storytelling/performances are there and the actors are still physically credible let it run.

 

[metaphysician]

If, and only if, your current creative direction is floundering, *and* you have a solid understanding of why your current series is not working and how a new direction post-reboot will do better.

Which is to say, honestly? Almost no reboots are actually justified on anything above the "roll the dice and hope for the best" level.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

When the cast of a long running series grow too old and prequels will be confusing for the timeline.
On condition that a bigger company buys the studio making that film series.

 

[jolldan]

You need a combination of things in my opinion to even have a chance of producing a good reboot.

• Passionate director. Someone who can has done more than thumb through the source material and has a vision of who the character is and what story or story elements he wants to adapt to the big screen.
• Talented actor. Who can bring that role to life but not in a way that is too similar to the actor or actors who played the character before them.
• A Studio That Doesn't Meddle. To a degree I know pretty much every studio does this but it really does seem to be the case that when studios get heavily involved the movie suffers. The likes of TASM2, Suicide Squad, Fantastic Four, Iron Man 2 and Daredevil were all meant to have seriously suffered because of this, that's not to say they would have been perfect otherwise but at least would have likely made the movie keep the same feel throughout.

When a Studio is trying to keep the rights to a character and just tries to get any movie out........

*cough* Fantastic Four *cough*

 

[Erzengel]

Spider-Man....Superman.....

 

[Abudefduf]

After a movie like Endgame.

 

[Heretic]

Go as long as it's profitable and the quality is maintained. Change directors...change actors...just keep going. I'm not so stupid that I wouldn't understand that the story it's the same person. I wasn't confused when a new artist drew the comic and the lead character looked a bit different...people will deal.

 

[The Joker]

A.S.A.P. if its truly in the crapper like Spider-Man was with the TASM movies.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

You can continue after a bad movie or two, but sometimes the franchise is such a mess that there is no choice. An example would be Fant4stic. There is no way they could continue that after the characters were butchered like that.

The other reason I would reboot is if it has been ages since the previous film. No point making a sequel in most cases (some iconic film that people never forgot and remains very popular like Star Wars would be an exception) if the last one came out 20 years ago.

 

[Rorschach2012]

As soon as Joel Schumacher has signed on to direct the most recent iteration of said character.

I honestly don't think they needed to reboot. The franchise was such a disjointed mess already, it wouldn't have been jarring for audiences if they completely changed the tone for Batman Unchained (which would have been the title of the 5th film). I'm convinced that movie would have been a success mostly because of the villains that would have returned (Joker, Catwoman, Penguin, Two-Face, and Riddler).