It seems the movie industry hasn’t learned anything from the dud all-female “Ghostbusters” film. Now Warner Bros. has come out to say a new film adaptation of the novel “Lord Of The Flies” is coming, complete with an all girl cast.

Kids marooned on a desert island without adult supervision

To recap the story in the William Golding novel, it tells the tale of a group of boys from a boarding school who get stranded alone on a desert island. They have to exist without the presence of adults and things get pretty nasty. For that reason, it is hard for many to imagine a group of girls behaving the same way under those conditions.

The Hollywood Reporter quotes Warner Bros. as saying the new all-female adaptation of Golding’s “Lord of the Flies” will be directed by David Siegel and Scott McGehee. The novel has, of course, been adapted for the big screen before, with the first, highly-lauded version directed by Peter Brook in 1963 and the second in 1990 by Harry Hook.

Siegel told Deadline in an interview that they do want to be faithful to the original book, but wish to contemporize the story, using an all female cast instead of boys.

Siegel went on to explain that “Lord of the Flies” is a “timeless story” and that it is especially relevant in current times, especially with the bullying and interpersonal conflicts experienced by kids these days. He sees the movie as representing children trying to form a society, while attempting to replicate behavior they saw in adults before being marooned on the island.

According to McGehee, the idea is to make people see the story in a new way, breaking away from the conventions where people think only of boys when it comes to aggression.

Criticism is rife of all-female version of ‘Lord of the Flies’

However since Warner Bros made the announcement of the all-female remake of “Lord of the Flies,” the Guardian notes they have received much criticism from those who believe it would ignore the central theme of the original novel.

One Twitter user went on to imagine in 140 characters or less that directors obviously have so little interest in seeking out original stories about girlhood, they have to remake a boys’ story with a female cast.

Roxane Gay, an American writer, said on Twitter that the idea makes no sense at all, as the story contained in the novel just wouldn’t happen if girls were marooned on the island.

Jessica Valenti, a self-proclaimed feminist author, went on to tweet that an all-female version of the story would in actual fact be a group of young girls, repeatedly apologizing to each other until they were all dead.

She followed that tweet up with a climax to the movie involving one girl beaten to death by the group for failing to use “exclamation points in her email.”

Even the author himself would not have imagined females in that kind of situation.

According to McGehee, script writing on the new "Lord of the Flies" project has not yet started, but he added and he and Siegel were eager to start. So far there is no news of the release date or potential cast.
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED