Elizabeth Banks Responds to Charlie’s Angels Bombing At Box Office: “I’m Proud”

John F. Trent |

Nov 19, 2019

Director, actress, screenwriter, and producer of Charlie’s Angels Elizabeth Banks responded to the film absolutely bombing in its opening weekend at the box office.

Banks took to Twitter where she wrote, “Well, if you’re going to have a flop, make sure your name is on it at least 4x.” She added, “I’m proud of Charlie’s Angels and happy it’s in the world.”

Well, if you’re going to have a flop, make sure your name is on it at least 4x. I’m proud of #CharliesAngels and happy it’s in the world.

— Elizabeth Banks (@ElizabethBanks) November 18, 2019

The director previously blamed men for a potential box office failure before the film had even arrived in theaters.

She spoke with Australia’s Herald Sun saying:

“If this movie doesn’t make money it reinforces a stereotype in Hollywood that men don’t go see women do action movies.”

She then criticized men’s taste in film specifically pointing to Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel.

“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.”

What she said. 😇 I sat down with your #CharliesAngels for @whohahadotcom‘s #AskABadass. 💥 Check it out: https://t.co/4qgBCRJYsL @CharliesAngels @NaomiScott @ellabalinska pic.twitter.com/QhalQEPppC

— Elizabeth Banks (@ElizabethBanks) November 15, 2019

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Banks would also criticize movie-going audiences for seeing comic book films. “You’ve had 37 Spider-Man movies and you’re not complaining,” said Banks. She added, “I think women are allowed to have one or two action franchises every 17 years—I feel totally fine with that.”

Back in July, Banks made it perfectly clear the film was targeting a female audience.

“When we were casting the movie, I wanted really fresh faces. 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. 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.”

She also revealed the film had an agenda and a message.

“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.”

She would double down earlier this month when talking with The Guardian detailing she loaded the film with “sneaky feminist ideas.” She detailed that one of them was “like, ‘Don’t forget to smile!'”

However, she did try to downplay her earlier comments that the film was making a grand political statement and noted she was trying to make a film with broad appeal.

“I’m not making any grand statements. I happened to make an action movie about corporate malfeasance that also happens to star women and everyone’s like, ‘What a political statement!’ And I’m like, ‘Is it?’ If they were all men and it was the exact same story, it wouldn’t be very political, would it? I wanted to make a broader, appealing movie rather than something actually political.”

What do you make of Banks’ statement regarding the box office failure of Charlie’s Angels?