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.
