So much for the all-female "Oceans" movie

Back in August I wrote of the forthcoming Oceans 8 movie with an all-woman cast,

Oceans 8, on the face of it, has a chance because it takes care of the second of those problems [a first-tier cast], but they had better concentrate hard on making sure they have a story. It must be a real caper movie before it is a chick dish if they want to rake in the dough.

... the funny thing about making this an anti-Oceans 11 is that there was a very prominent female in Oceans 11. She got more screen time than many of the actors not named Clooney/Pitt/Damon.

Her name was Julia Roberts, not exactly a throwaway actress in a throwaway role.

Comes now the news that Oceans 8 will follow the formula: "George Clooney to Join All-Female ‘Oceans Eight’ Film."

The Oceans trilogy featured George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon. But a source, who has seen the script of Ocean’s Eight, tells Heat Street that Clooney will be reprising his role as Danny Ocean in the female-driven reboot (he is also a producer of the film).

One wonders whether that fact that Clooney is the producer had anything to do with this. But as was discussed in August, the dismal flop of the all-female Ghostbusters remake must weigh heavily on this movie.

“Clooney has a proper supporting role in Ocean’s Eight, it’s not a cameo like Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd had in Ghostbusters,” adds the source. “Evidently Warner Bros wants Oceans Eight to have a strong connection to the preceding films and not risk its commercial prospects by entirely featuring brand new characters.”

If they have a good story, this will probably work.