The unstoppable rise of social media has seen fans gain a direct line to the creative minds behind their favorite brands and franchises, and they aren’t exactly shy in letting their opinions be known. Being able to communicate with the actors, writers and directors behind some of the most popular properties in the business has also led to a massively increased sense of entitlement though among a very vocal minority, and if they want or don’t like something, then they’ll go out of their way to make sure that as many people as possible hear about it.
Studios never seemed to pay any attention to the online discourse, but the recent announcement that the Snyder Cut of Justice League was becoming a reality after a two and a half year fan campaign looks to have rewritten the rule book, and this only seems to have spurred people on to make further demands.
Star Wars fans didn’t turn up in big enough numbers to stop Solo from bombing at the box office, but they still want a sequel. Not happy that Disney is making two Pirates of the Caribbean movies without Johnny Depp? Start a petition. Not a big fan of Brie Larson as Captain Marvel? Petition. Too impatient to wait until November for Black Widow to hit theaters? You guessed it, petition for an immediate Disney Plus release.
The latest subject of a revival campaign is a very surprising one, with over 900,000 people backing calls for Netflix to bring back the recently-canceled literary adaptation Anne with an E, which ran for three seasons before being canned last year. A quaint coming-of-age drama doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that would spawn a loyal and dedicated following, but the petition now has almost half a million more signatures than the one to remove Amber Heard from Aquaman 2.
A co-production between Netflix and Canada’s CBC Television, Anne with an E didn’t even rank as one of the country’s Top 30 most-watched cable shows, and the streaming figures weren’t said to be particularly great, either. As such, the fact that the revival campaign is closing in on a million signatures certainly comes pretty out of the blue for the critically acclaimed period piece.