I Still Don't Understand Why This Bombed!

good points. I think the main problem was gina davis was not that big of a star. if this had been done with Sandra bullock in the lead a year or 2 after speed (or j-law now), it would've been a huge hit, I think. Gina did a fantastic job, she just was not big enough to launch the film (which seems more important than how good the film is, sadly).

Unfortunately the Action Girl phenomenon hadn't really taken off in the mainstream just yet. Buffy hadn't started yet (though the movie had come out) and Xena was more of a cult thing. The public just wasn't used to an action movie with a female lead. And Geena Davis was known mainly for romcoms and dramas. So fans of her might have been put off by a genre so different to what she's known for, and action movie fans would have been put off by her being the lead. Likewise at that time Samuel L Jackson wasn't as notable a star as he is today. While he was recognisable, he was going through a hype backlash period after Pulp Fiction. He wouldn't rebound until Die Hard With A Vengeance.

Hahahahaha. No one cares.

The reason is that there's a lot of misogyny on the part of young males who've been more and more the target audience for filmmakers in the past twenty years. For example, look at the ire online against the all female remake of Ghostbusters. I just read an astounding article about that in The Atlantic.

Young men don't want women as the leads in their movies. Especially action or suspense films. It's the reason the entertaining Cutthroat Island didn't amass an audience a year before this one and that this one didn't do any better. Female lead.

Another example: In 1995 a film came out called Seven. Huge box-office hit. A month later an equally entertaining and similarly themed film came out called Copycat. It was largely ignored by audiences. Why? Female leads. Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman weren't the leads in it, but rather Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter. Where Seven made $100 million, Copycat made $32 million.

The mostly young male audiences are very misogynistic. They're afraid of strong women leads. It's why their favorite films are The Godfather's and Martin Scorcese films. Look at how the women are treated in all those films.

Think I'm wrong? Have you seen a lot of the misogyny involved in the Hillary Clinton bashing online?

Here's that Atlantic article if you need more proof:

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/05/the-sexist-outcry-against-the-ghostbusters-remake-gets-louder/483270/#article

And be warned: these misogynists will come up with all sorts of refutations against this idea. It will be about anything else than that. Anything.