Elizabeth Banks Blames Failure Of ‘Charlie’s Angels’ Reboot On Film Being Marketed “As Just For Girls”, Ignores Her Own Role In The Narrative
Actress-slash-director Elizabeth Banks has expressed regret over how her 2019 Charlie’s Angel reboot was marketed to the public as a film “just for girls”, seemingly forgetting how she herself strongly contributed to the promotion of that narrative.
Led by Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, and star of the universally-panned Resident Evil Netflix series Ella Balinska, the Banks written-starring-and-directed woke reboot of the classic television series was, unsurprisingly, yet another example of modern Hollywood promoting misandry under the guise of ’empowering’ female entertainment.
(Not sure what I’m talking about? Look at Disney and Marvel’s She-Hulk: Attorney at Law for a good example.)
To the surprise of no one with an IQ above 70, this direction led audiences – and men in particular – to stay home and keep their hard-earned money in their pockets.
No one wants to sit through a two-hour lecture about how terrible they are, much less pay for the chance to do so.
Despite the fact that it was marketed towards them, even women opted not to support a movie
Because of this, the film was a massive box office bomb for Sony, debuting to a domestic opening weekend take of just $8 Million.
According to Banks, this disconnect between her film and audiences was due to the film being regretfully marketed as a sort of “feminist manifesto”.
Asked by The New York Times during a recent interview if she learned any lessons from the bombing of Charlie’s Angels, Banks recalled, ” It was very stressful, partly because when women do things in Hollywood it becomes this story.”
“There was a story around Charlie’s Angels that I was creating some feminist manifesto,” she said, unwilling to let a chance to play the victim pass her by. “I was just making an action movie. I would’ve liked to have made Mission: Impossible, but women aren’t directing Mission: Impossible. I was able to direct an action movie, frankly, because it starred women and I’m a female director, and that is the confine right now in Hollywood.”
“I wish that the movie had not been presented as just for girls, because I didn’t make it just for girls,” Banks lamented. “There was a disconnect on the marketing side of it for me.”
The director further alleged that she had been “told by a big producer of big action movies that I couldn’t direct action, that male actors were not going to follow me.”
“He was flummoxed at the idea that a woman would be able to lead The Rock on a C.G.I. screen, I guess?” Banks claimed. “That was said by someone with a lot of power in our industry to my face”
RELATED: Elizabeth Banks Responds to Charlie’s Angels Bombing At Box Office: “I’m Proud”
Banks’ latest comments, coming in three-years after the fact, admittedly sound reasonable.
After all, if true, it wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen a studio go rogue and promote a creator’s work in a completely different light than intended (John Carter and Fight Club jump to mind).
But in reality, Banks has no one but herself to blame for the way the film was received by the public.
In a 2019 interview given to Collider in promotion of Charlie’s Angels, Banks made it very clear that she both intended for the film to be important to women and for its target audience to be young girls.
“When we were casting the movie, I wanted really fresh faces,” said the director. “I wanted a diverse cast. It’s important that women, the audience for this movie, sees themself in some part of this movie. I think that’s really important.”
“I want the audience to feel a sense of ownership over the film, that they could be in this movie, that they could live in this world, it’s a real message,” declared Banks. “It’s a movie that I want to entertain all audiences but I did want to make something that felt important to women and especially young girls.”
Banks would add that “one of the ingredients of this movie was supporting and believing women.”
“We literally have a character who is essentially working at a big corporation and is not being believed or listened to by her bosses,” she clarified. “One of the statements this movie makes is that you should probably believe women.”
“We have as much validity in what we’re feeling and how we want to go about living in the world, being in the world, and that was really important to me, that we felt like we had characters that were being taken seriously and given a chance to live their best life,” the Charlie’s Angels director continued.
A week before her film opened to no applause, Banks attempted to shame audiences into watching Charlie’s Angels by claiming that “if this movie doesn’t make money it reinforces a stereotype in Hollywood that men don’t go see women do action movies.”
Speaking in light of the then-in-full-swing #MeToo Movement, Banks concluded, “That said we’re in charge of Hollywood; we’re the stars. We can do it. We have to take control of this. And I feel like I’m part of a new class that feels the same way. Like it’s our time now.”
And it wasn’t just Banks taking this position. In 2018, Stewart herself went on record with Variety and teased that the film would explicitly be “‘woke'”.
“[Banks’ film] is still gonna be fun and ‘Charlie’s Angels’-y, but will also be current and modern,” exclaimed the actress. “God, it’s so funny. I know if I say this a certain way, I know that this will be written down. But it’s not such a bad thing, it’s kind of like a ‘woke’ version.”
Things didn’t get better for Banks as the months moved on. Sadly, Charlie’s Angels didn’t take the world by storm.
Following the failure of Sony’s box office abortion, Banks took to Twitter to assdert, “Well if you’re going to have a flop, make sure your name is on it at least 4x. I’m proud of Charlie’s Angels and happy it’s in the world.”
NEXT: Elizabeth Banks on Charlie’s Angels: Women Are The Audience and The Message Is To “Believe Women”
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