How can any man expect to out play the Duke as Rooster Cogburn?
Jeff Bridges can and will out play the Duke with one eye tied behind his back any day of the week. He will reveal once and for all what a lousy actor JW was all along.
Though, maybe I'm a bit premature to say it's going to flop. This is a different America now. Maybe they'll like a dimmer version of the Rooster.
I think you just swerved inadvertently into the truth. They are killing John Wayne is what they're doing. The John Wayne model of manhood is the target. That is why the critics hate Lucas and the Star Wars films - they promote the older style of real manhood - strong, courageous, standing in defense of what is right. The people running Hollywood now want to kill that vision of manhood. It's a PsyOp.