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‘Ghostbusters’ and the Hollywood remake: Is ‘Goonies’ next? A female-led ‘Die Hard’?

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Now that the new “Ghostbusters” won the Friday-night box office race and is on track for a $46.5 million opening weekend — no blockbuster, but surpassing early skeptical expectations — some are already wondering which classic movie from our childhoods will be next to get the reboot treatment.  

Of course, it’s no easy task to bring back a beloved film. 

After the announcement of an all-female cast for the new “Ghostbusters,” fans of the original 1984 film immediately hit the Internet with scathing comments. Things went from bad to worse when the first trailer debuted on YouTube and received nearly 950,000 dislikes — making it one of the most disliked videos ever posted on the site. 

READ: The culture of anger, a series on our venomous media landscape »

The negative reactions didn’t ruin the fun for “Ghostbusters” fans at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, where attendees of Friday night’s 7 p.m. screening partook in a pre-show cocktail reception (of course, “Ghostbusters” themed), free souvenirs and free selfies with the giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, the iconic softie gone bad from the original film, who turns up in the reboot too. 

The bigger treat for serious film fans was a Q&A following the screening with director Paul Feig, who had a bit of fun with the casting controversy by salting the movie with jokes about rude, sexist Internet comments.

The screening had been advertised in some parts as a “Ladies Night” event, but after all the angst over female ghostbusters alienating male moviegoers, Times reporter Rebecca Keegan tweeted that men were more than well-represented in the audience.

https://twitter.com/ThatRebecca/status/754173633853992960

So what’s next on the reboot slate? In order to try to gauge the reaction of what movie our readers would like to see remade, we created a Twitter poll to ask just that.

https://twitter.com/latimesent/status/754367551006658560

The results were surprising, but the comments were not.

A few hours into the poll, “The Goonies” is currently the film readers would want to see rebooted. However, commenters were not as thrilled about the possibility of a “Goonies” remake — or any remake for that matter.

https://twitter.com/cousinflacko/status/754368280111017984
https://twitter.com/wraithfodder/status/754407829654630400
https://twitter.com/TheLaWisspeakin/status/754402765992886272
https://twitter.com/will6015/status/754370705018327040

And what about another all-female cast for a dude-dominated movie? To measure our reader’s reaction to the idea of replacing a male cast with women in a classic reboot, another Twitter poll was created.

https://twitter.com/latimesent/status/754341791122399232

Currently, the film readers would most like to see remade with a female-dominant cast is “Die Hard,” with “Wedding Crashers” and “The Fast & The Furious” neck-and-neck right behind it. Surprisingly, no comments have been made toward this question (maybe all the sexists were too busy boycotting “Ghostbusters”).

With remakes and reboots being made all over Hollywood (“21 Jump Street,” “Point Break”), it is not surprising to see people fretting over whether their favorite childhood movie will be next. However, it seems that there are plenty of people who would like to see some classics remade with a new cast and vision — that must be why Hollywood is stuck on this trend.

Follow me on Twitter: @shannonoconnor0

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