According to The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Brothers is about to make an all-girl version of Lord of the Flies.
Warner Bros. is planning a gender-bent adaptation of the iconic William Golding novel Lord of the Flies.
Scott McGehee and David Siegel will write and direct the new take on the story, which follows a group of young boarding school students that end up stranded on an island and devolve into pre-pubescent savages over the course of the novel. Harry Hook directed a 1990 version of the story, while a 1963 feature was helmed by Peter Brook.
I think the first question we should ask is “who actually wants this movie?” And the only answer I can think of “studio executives who are deathly afraid of new ideas and saw that Wonder Woman did well”. I mean, everyone knows Lord of the Flies, we all read it in eighth grade along side A Separate Peace, but did anyone actually like either of those books? It’s the sort of thing people call “important” and “a classic” but never “good”. It doesn’t seem like the sort of thing people will be lining up to see.
The Internet agrees with me that no one wants to see this, but for a bunch of different reasons. And seeing the reactions people had to this announcement is literally the only interesting part of this story; the movie itself will come out, be terrible, and maybe just make back its budget, but probably not.
My favorite takes go in a category I like to call “has never worked in an office with women”:
the all-girl remake of lord of the flies wont work bc realistically the girls would set aside their differences & work to get off the island
— i am the eldest boy! (@vickykrieps) August 31, 2017
Yes, young women are all perfect, loving, caring mothers who never bully other girls until they commit suicide because they wore last season’s shoes or something. This was not lost on other Twitter users.
Plot of all female cast of Lord of the Flies…
One woman refuses to pull her weight, so the rest go to brunch and talk badly about her.
— FORCED PREGNANCY IS SLAVERY (@Addicted2Poli) August 31, 2017
Isn't an all female Lord of the Flies just Mean Girls?
— Haye Zeus (@Nazhair) August 31, 2017
If you want to hear about a female Lord of the Flies let me tell you about my experiences in all-girls' show choir
— Mara Wilson (@MaraWilson) August 31, 2017
Of course, some people had explicitly sexist reactions, because some people are fucking dumb. Imagine caring about this enough to get mad about it:
the all girl lord of the flies will be a day of fat shaming and bullying then they all freeze to death because no one could start a fire
— Christian Vanderbrouk 🇺🇸🇮🇱🇺🇦 (@UrbanAchievr) August 31, 2017
We already have an all-female "Lord of the Flies." It's called "The View." And it sucks.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) August 31, 2017
Okay, I admit, picking a Ben Shapiro tweet to point out people are saying stupid s**t on the internet is borderline cheating, but if he doesn’t want to be made fun off he should say fewer stupid things. He wasn’t even the first person to make that lame joke.
Meanwhile, others just thought the idea was stupid in general:
i bet the "all-female Lord of the Flies remake" guys would get on well with the "Heathers, but the bullies are all oppressed minorities" guy
— Gavia Baker-Whitelaw (@Hello_Tailor) August 30, 2017
i bet the "all-female Lord of the Flies remake" guys would get on well with the "Heathers, but the bullies are all oppressed minorities" guy
— Gavia Baker-Whitelaw (@Hello_Tailor) August 30, 2017
The Lord of the Flies movie feels like a studio had a big jar of "Make with Chicks?" ideas & just picked the one that made the least sense.
— Sam (@unegrandefemme) August 31, 2017
I’m in the last camp, by the way. Hollywood generally runs on a dearth of creativity, and when something does well, studio execs fall all over each other trying to copy it. This is why there’s a new super hero movie every month. Obviously execs are getting the message that people want to see films lead by women, so they’re just going to remake a bunch of movies with all-women casts with no regard for quality and advertise it as a win for feminism. Which was exactly what didn’t work for the Ghostbusters reboot, because no amount of love for women can overcome a Paul Feig script.