Going into last weekend, box office pundits predicted that the reboot of CHARLIE'S ANGELS was not going to perform well financially. Well turns out those self-same pundits were right as CHARLIE'S ANGELS failed to crack $10 million domestically bringing in a paltry $8.6 million. Although the Sony film carried a modest budget ($50 million), that kind of return is a financial failure even by the most generous of standards.
Now there's any of a number of reasons as to why CHARLIE'S ANGELS failed to perform at the box office. However, last week when word began to take shape that CHARLIE'S ANGELS might bomb, director Elizabeth Banks cited sexism as the potential reason. In an interview with the Herald Sun Banks said:
“Look, people have to buy tickets to this movie, too. This movie has to make money. If this movie doesn’t make money it reinforces a stereotype in Hollywood that men don’t go see women do action movies.”
Not surprisingly the Internet responded in force to Banks' idea, pointing to the box office success of films like CAPTAIN MARVEL and WONDER WOMAN. However, Banks discounted those arguments because of the fact that those movies were comicbook films:
"They’ll go and see a comic book movie with Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel because that’s a male genre. So even though those are movies about women, they put them in the context of feeding the larger comic book world, so it’s all about, yes, you’re watching a Wonder Woman movie but we’re setting up three other characters or we’re setting up ‘Justice League.’”
CHARLIE'S ANGELS is a very clear example of female empowerment and has a decidedly feminist slant to it, which if I may point out, is not necessarily a bad thing. When Banks was asked if she was concerned about the reaction from Internet trolls, the BRIGHTBURN actress was dismissive:
“‘Charlie’s Angels’ has always been about women, and the DNA of it is about women working together on this team. We are not treading in a male space. I think that’s one of the big differences between these two things. I don’t know, I’m less concerned about that. Of course, those trolls are horrifying, but you know, I challenge them to get up and make a fucking movie action movie. I welcome any of them into my realm.”
OK I'm a little confused here. Banks wants men to see CHARLIE'S ANGELS and if they don't it, it reinforces the idea that men don't go to female-led action films. Yet she's also stating that this film is about women and geared toward a woman audience. It begs the question then as to what audience exactly this film was made for.
As much as I respect Elizabeth Banks as a director and an actress, I have to disagree with her here. I think the box office failure of CHARLIE'S ANGELS had less to do with men not seeing the movie and more to do with no one really wanting a CHARLIE'S ANGELS reboot. The same could be said for LAST BLOOD, TERMINATOR: DARK FATE, and DOCTOR SLEEP, all films based on known properties that didn't really do well at the box office. Audiences, both male and female, will consistently show up for female-led films if they are good. It's happened before with T2 and ALIENS and it happened last year with HALLOWEEN and WIDOWS. Additionally, the key component to all four of those films I just mentioned is that they were good films. CHARLIE'S ANGELS has been a failure with critics, Joblo's own JimmyO among them. To place the blame elsewhere doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
CHARLIE'S ANGELS is currently in theaters everywhere.