Universal Pictures; WB; Sony Pictures Why are we seeing so many stupid so-called "reboots" of old ideas like Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
—88Vibey, via the inbox
I hope you boarded up your windows before you sent me this. Vampire lovers are so rabid in their fandom they're liable to storm your house. (Here, I'll create a diversion for you:
Robert Pattinson has a head like bleached a cinder block. Run!)
Anyway, here's why The Hulk, Buffy, Superman and Spider-Man are all being reset and retold from the beginning:
Money. Or, more specifically, guaranteed money.
"Reboots are going to succeed more often," says Tim League of the theater franchise Alamo Drafthouse.
"People are more aware of the concept you're promoting, so it's a safer route. And you succeed more often than you fail."
Even more importantly, he says, you're more likely to know your profits early. Advance ticket sales are much easier to pull off if customers know what they're going to see—well, in advance.
That's opposed to brand-new movie ideas, which do not lend themselves to pre-sales, League tells me. Instead, theater owners and moviemakers have to wait longer for their money to come in, because new ideas require time for good word of mouth to get around. (Of course, that did work out for
Avatar.)
That idea also translates to television. The Hulk is coming back to TV, with the help of
Pan's Labyrinth director
Guillermo del Toro, who is on board to co-create the new reboot.
Is it greedy for moviemakers to keep revisiting old ideas instead of working a little harder to find fresh ones? I'll tell you, in my latest podcast!
See also:
Jackson Lee/NPG.com; Kevin Winter/Getty Images 
