When the Rat Pack first gathered together for the star-studded original all the way back in 1960, they couldn’t have imagined that the brand would still be widely-recognized and hugely popular to this day, with Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven the catalyst.
Even though it’s been over 20 years since the Academy Award-winning filmmaker delivered one of the greatest remakes of all-time, the franchise is still going strong. In fact, a prequel is currently in development that’s set to reunite Barbie co-stars Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie, so A-listers remain as attached to the Ocean’s name as they did 60 years ago.
When that film ultimately arrives, it’ll mark the prequel to a remake that got two sequels and a spinoff, because Hollywood loves few things more than wringing every possible drop of profit from a worthwhile IP. None of them could hold a candle to 2001’s Ocean’s Eleven, though, which additionally endures as one of the lightest, breeziest, and most entertaining heist capers there’s ever been.
Even today, at-home audiences are drawn to the raft of recognizable names banding together to pull off the first of their many implausible heists, with FlixPatrol revealing Ocean’s Eleven to be one of the most-watched features on Vudu. We never did get Ocean’s Fourteen, but we did end up with Eight and whatever the next one ends up being called, which is going to have to do.
Will the 1960s-set caper match its predecessors in terms of acclaim and box office? Given the inconsistencies that followed Eleven, it’ll tick off at least one.
