Elizabeth Banks calls out “gendered agenda” pushed onto her Charlie’s Angels reboot
“To lose control of the narrative like that was a real bummer,” Banks said of the girl boss marketing surrounding the film
Aux News Charlie's Angels
While hyper-femme marketing clearly paid off in spades for Greta Gerwig and Barbie, it’s a very different story when films about women and girls are sold as only for women and girls—especially when that wasn’t the director’s original vision in the first place. Case in point: Elizabeth Banks’ 2019 Charlie’s Angels reboot, which the director says wasn’t so much a girlboss movie, as a movie that just happened to have really talented women in it.
“So much of the story that the media wanted to tell about Charlie’s Angels was that it was some feminist manifesto,” Banks told Rolling Stone of her sophomore directorial feature, which starred Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott and Ella Balinska as the titular spies. The movie was a notable flop, only bringing in a total of $73.3 million (worldwide) at the box office.
“People kept saying, ‘You’re the first female director of Charlie’s Angels!” And I was like, “They’ve only done a TV show and McG’s movies… what are you talking about? There’s not this long legacy.’ I just loved the franchise,” she continued. (Also: a 2011 reboot of the original 1976 series was cancelled without even airing its finale and the original 2000 and 2003 films debuted to mixed reviews, so it seems like Banks may have been facing a losing battle regardless.)
“There was not this gendered agenda from me. That was very much laid on top of the work, and it was a little bit of a bummer. It felt like it pigeonholed me and the audience for the movie,” she continued. “I happen to be a woman who directed a Charlie’s Angels movie that happened to star three incredible women. You can’t control the media saying, ‘You’re a lady director, and that’s special!’—which it is, but it’s not the only thing.”
In retrospect, it’s not all that surprising that Banks went on to direct Cocaine Bear, a film so ridiculous that it’s title was essentially the only ad it needed. “I remember having a conversation with someone who was like, ‘You guys are going to have a partnership with Drybar’—which is, like, a hair-blowing thing—and I was like, ‘Alright… but could we have an ad during the baseball playoffs? It’s not only this one thing,’” she said of Angels. “It was interesting to see how the industry sees things that star women. It was a real lesson for me.”
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Elizabeth Banks, 2019:
“If Charlie’s Angels bombs it reinforces a stereotype in Hollywood that men don’t go see women do action movies.” Elizabeth Banks, 2023:
“There was not this gendered agenda from me.”Girl, we remember things and your quotes are online.
What does one of those quotes have to do with the other
When I read the headline I thought “oh! This’ll bring out that one dude who’s mad at Elizabeth Banks!”
I’m not mad at her, I actually like her, but I also remember things.
And also have no reading comprehension, apparently.
I like Elizabeth Banks, but what she’s saying here is just not convincing.
I kind of get her point though especially the “but could we have an ad during the baseball playoffs?” question. Maybe men didn’t/don’t go see women in action movies because they’re not advertised as being “for men”, whatever that means.But also, Banks’ Charlie’s Angels was an awful movie.
Well I mean a movie is for everyone, though some may be leaning towards specific audiences, like whatever that movie was I think last year with the 2 gay leads and I think the director bitching that straight people didn’t come out in force to see it.But as you said it was also AWFUL, much like the all female Ghostbusters movie, it didn’t tank because men review bombed and bitched about it, it bombed because it was a terrible movie.
The director didn’t help his cause implying that if you didn’t go see his movie you were a homophobic weirdo.
Yeah everything around that was kind of a shit show lol. Like you make a movie aimed at the LGBTQ audience and then get mad straight people didn’t see it, like WTF dude.
Plus as others have pointed out, if you’re going to make a romcom you better bring your A game because that genre has pretty much been squeezed dry. Apparently Bros wasn’t that.
they were also approximately 10 years late to capitalize on billy eichner’s popularity.
I didn’t see Bros, but when I think of Billy Eichner I think of Billy on the Street, his character in Parks and Rec and his turn as a tech bro in AHS: Apocalypse. When your most measured performance is in AHS, that is going to be a tough sell. I am not sure I wanted to go see a 90 minute movie that prominently featured someone whose whole schtick is a lot of anxious energy and yelling.
i was very excited for bros because nicolas stoller has made two of my favorite romcoms of all time in forgetting sarah marshall and the 5 year engagement, plus he and eichner worked well together on the show friends from college.but they did not make a good movie. it’s not even because they lean into the ‘billy persona’, because they don’t, he’s this mild-mannered podcaster. he gives endless, paragraph long monologues that sounds like repurposed standup material and, ultimately, it has no bite. bad movie!
Oh no way. I love Forgetting Sarah Marshall too… and had no idea the guy who made that was involved in Bros. I would have made that more prominent. Still doesn’t make the movie good, but it would have fixed some of the really crappy marketing that movie had.
Terrible movies make money all the time. The first two Charlie’s Angels movies were big hits because the studio advertised them at everyone. For the Banks version, the studio was seemingly afraid to market it at men, and the movie suffered for it.Barbie (and other female-led hits like Captain Marvel and EEAAO) proves that movies starring women can be big successes if the studio just promotes them right.
Well I mean I remember seeing ads for Banks Charlies Angels movie back in the day on cable as well as seeing stuff about it here. Part of me thinks that compared to the prior ones only 1 of the three leads, Kristen Stewart even had much name recognition I just googled the other 2 actresses, and neither had been in very many, if any big projects in the states.
That’s a good point. The first two were marketed on the star power of the actresses playing the Angels, while the reboot seemed to think the brand alone could carry it.
Yeah the first 2 had 3 established leads in Lucy Liu, Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore, they were all well established more or less household names, add in Demi Moore for the sequel. But Banks version, which I have seen, just didn’t have that star power, when only one of you leads, Kristen Stewart, is a big name it’s a bit of a harder sale. Would it have done better if they advertised during baseball, maybe who knows.
“I just googled the other 2 actresses, and neither had been in very many, if any big projects in the states.”
So?
You only see movies starring world-famous people?
eh, i didn’t think the first two were terrible, not Citizen Kane but entertaining anyhow. sounds like this one was not even entertaining
Yeah it is.
It didn’t help that two of her Angels looked like they just graduated high school. Farah Fawcett, Jacqelyn Smith, Kate Jackson and Cheryl Ladd were all mature women who at least passed the eyeball test as far as being experienced spies (and many other things, of course). Kristen Stewart should have been the youngest of the bunch (although I’d call her miscast as well), not the oldest.
Age is such a weird thing because even Stewart still, to me, looks very young while Farrah Fawcett, Kate Jackson, and Jaclyn Smith all looked more mature when the TV show began even though they were all roughly the same age as Stewart was in the movie.Even the McG movie cast seemed more “grown up” to me even though Cameron Diaz was about the same age as Stewart was when they each did the movie (and Drew Barrymore was several years younger).It may be that my perception is based largely on my own age (I was a child during the original show run, and the McG cast is close to my age range), but I don’t know.
Diaz, Liu and Barrymore were all very well-known by that point, which probably helped. I do think Barrymore was a bit of an odd choice, but at least she was recognizable. Looking at the most recent cast it felt like the Magnum PI remake, actors I’d never heard of who were just too pretty and not lived-in enough.
barrymore also produced it.
Oh yeah…I was going to say “hopefully they at least had fun” and then remembered Murray was apparently a pain in the ass during the shoot.
i bet tom green was fun!
I’m not sure I’d want to find out.
How much of that is fashion though? Look at HS annuals from the 70s and every senior in there look like they are middle aged because of hair and fashion
Could be, though sometimes that doesn’t come across on screen as bad as in yearbooks to me.
Especially in the light of the success of EEAAO — two of the three action leads were women, and it had no trouble drawing an audience and winning tons of awards. Also Fury Road, Kill Bill, Aliens…
Whoa, buddy: are you saying women-led movies need to be non-shit in order to not be regarded as shit? I’m sure someone’ll be along to tell you that, man, that’s pretty sexist.
Yes, but I was taking aim at the specific claims here by Banks, not the problem of sexism in Hollywood. I mean, I don’t really blame Banks for looking for reasons to deflect criticism. Perception is everything in the industry. It was more her choice of deflection I object to.
“I’d rather be a hypocrite than the same person forever.”—Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz.
I don’t think those are contradictory. She hoped it would make money because (among other obvious reasons) if it didn’t, people would say it’s because it was a woman-driven movie.
Also, shaming people not seeing your movie… has that ever worked?
All I know is that using the justice system to force people to watch your movie seems to work.
I don’t see the contradiction. It sounds like she’s not saying that the movie bombing will prove that a stereotype is true, merely that it will reinforce thestereotype prompted by media and believed by studio money men.
“Girl, we remember things”Girl, who is “we”? How in the world did you remember this? Do you just have a word document constantly updated with Elizabeth Banks quotes?
I remembered it as soon as I started reading this article. A lot of people who live on the Internet gave her a lot of crap when she first said it. IT got lumped in with the all-female Ghostbusters movie as stuff that seemed to be made for women by punching down to men.
Eek. I hate where I live, but I’m glad it’s not the internet.
It’s just a nerd thing: They can’t forget and they can’t shut up about not forgetting.
Yeah what a horrible nerd I am for being able to remember things.
Cool cool cool. Now do the second part of my sentence.
So…you want me to feel bad about remembering things and talking about them? Or you just want me to know that I’m a nerd and you’re better than me because you don’t remember things too well?
“So…you want me to feel bad about remembering things and talking about them?”Why would I want you to do something you’re incapable of doing?“Or you just want me to know that I’m a nerd and you’re better than me because you don’t remember things too well?”Nope, nope and nope.
“Why would I want you to do something you’re incapable of doing?”You think I can’t feel bad?“Nope, nope and nope.”Ahh so you were just trolling then. Well played, sir!
“You think I can’t feel bad?”No, I think you can’t shut up.“Ahh so you were just trolling then.”Not even close. I don’t care what you think I think of you, I don’t think I’m better than you, and my memory works quite nicely.
“No, I think you can’t shut up.”Ahh ok, that’s not actually what you said but whatever.
“Not even close.”Oh no, you’re definitely trolling.
“my memory works quite nicely.”I dunno, seems like you’re at least a bit jealous that I remembered a thing. You’re certainly typing enough words about it so you obviously care enough to bother to call me a nerd and state that I remember things and like to talk about them like that’s some kind of bad thing. Definitely seems like you look at not forgetting things in a negative way.
Or…wait…are you a Liz Banks sock puppet account?
“Ahh ok, that’s not actually what you said”Correct. Which is why when you asked, I clarified.“Oh no, you’re definitely trolling.”I see you got those mind-reading powers for your birthday.“you’re at least a bit jealous that I remembered a thing”No, jealousy would not be the emotion that describes reading your posts.“so you obviously care”This wasn’t a a secret.“Definitely seems like you look at not forgetting things in a negative way.”No, as I said earlier, it was the not being able to shut up part that I had a problem with.
We is ‘people a brain’, because people with brains can remember she said basically the opposite when the movie came out. If you read the rest of my statement you can pretty much infer that I googled it and don’t keep a doc with her quotes like a weirdo.
“We is ‘people a brain’”
Want to try that again, genius?
“We is ‘people a brain’, because people with brains can remember she said basically the opposite when the movie came out.”I guess I’m not “people a brain.” 🙁
Considering the kinja network made articles about her comments about people not seeing her movie — it’s not implausible to recall her previous comments if you frequently visit the kinja network.
5 years from now, people will still remember Olivia Wilde drama because of how often they ran articles on her.
I might remember the Olivia Wilde drama but I damn sure won’t be pulling her quotes out of my ass.
Kinja network made articles based on Elizabeth Banks’ quotes — so it’s not implausible to remember the gist of them, even if paraphrased.
Still not sure why you’re so bent out of shape if people recall said articles — it means the writers did a good job at making that article memorable, which is something writers strive to accomplish in the first place.
I’m just curious what criteria you used to determine I was “so bent out of shape”?
What? You don’t?
So, she outspokenly tried to get men to see it, knowing that the studio was NOT marketing it to men, and somehow that’s inconsistent with lamenting that men didn’t see it because the studio didn’t market it to men?
But hey, you like Elizabeth Banks, you said so yourself.
these things are not in conflict, like, at all
I like how you point out a basic point of accountability on her own part, and are immediately labled. And I’ve got Banks quote that illustrates your point even better: “I’ve been asked to go see movies starring men my entire life, and happily have done so. And I don’t know why men won’t return the fucking favor.” Lol.
Yeah what a horrible nerd I am for remembering a thing that was all over the damn place just a few years back. I should just shut up and let the pretty Hollywoo lady say whatever she pleases even if she’s lying about it to make herself feel better about making a shitty movie that flopped.
There’s also this:“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.”She was the one claiming the movie had a women-power agenda, and now she is lying about it being made up by the media.
“I happen to be a woman who directed a Charlie’s Angels movie that happened to star three incredible women.”
I think it’s a bit disingenuous to say Charlie’s Angels was just a “movie that happened to” have women stars.
Took me a minute to remember there was a 2019 movie.
“I just loved the franchise…”Really?? I couldn’t tell you why anyone (well, Banks) made this film, or what they were hoping to achieve. It just kind of exists. The result of having no new ideas, and being executed half-heartedly. Say what you will about the earlier films, they at least have a point of view (big, loud cartoon camp). Angels isn’t some grand un-f*ck-with-able franchise—you really can do anything with it. And yet she made a film that attempted nothing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Banks is a fucking hack.
Oh no, she works on average stuff to make a living. What a monster.
I didn’t call her a monster. I called her a hack. I don’t really understand the need to defend her when her entire catalogue is trash… AND when this statement goes directly against what she was saying leading up to the movie coming out. Do you feel the need to stand up for other hack directors who do direct to netflix trash or is it just when it’s a pretty white blonde woman?
“So much of the story that the media wanted to tell about Charlie’s Angels was that it was some feminist manifesto,” Banks told Rolling StoneSEE ALSO: Feig’s Ghostbusters. That flick never had a fair chance, as The Narratives(TM) had pigeonholed it long before release. RESULT: Something that only ever would’ve been a light, fun popcorn flick didn’t even get a chance to BE that. It was shouldered with more sociopolitical weight than it ever could’ve borne.
Feig’s GB was bad regardless of the premise and casting. No focus, excessive dependence on one-liners. There’s a lot less ad-libbing in the original than people think.
In fact, I’d argue the cast was one of the only good things about that movie. It took funny actors and saddled them with the dumbest one-liners, choppiest editing, laziest plot, and clunkiest pacing in recent memory.I’d literally rather watch those 4 women just talk and joke about ghosts over brunch for 90 min, it would probably be more entertaining.
yeah, i think ghostbusters 2016 works slightly better as an okay ‘silly comedy’ than afterlife works as an ‘emotional spielberg homage’, but i don’t think either of them are particularly good and especially not particularly good ghostbusters movies.
I’d be more ok with this deadening treadmill of constant remakes and reboots if more of them were able to “get” what worked about their predecessors. So few of them do and end up feeling like watching some other kid playing with your action figures.
i just saw the new ninja turtles and i’m once again amazed at their ability to constantly keep the characters fresh, both appealing to a new generation and tipping the hat to the old.maybe the secret is just never going away.
The newest Indiana Jones of course doesn’t rise to the heights of Last Crusade, but it does get the one thing that Crystal Skull forgot: Indiana Jones movies should be a constant non-stop chase scene.
I have to agree. Afterlife is pretty, but storywise nothing happens for the first hour. Nothing.
“I’d literally rather watch those 4 women just talk and joke about ghosts over brunch for 90 min, it would probably be more entertaining.”I mean from what was said in interviews (particularly with Feig) it sounds like you can watch them just talk and joke about ghosts… in the hours and hours of ad-libs and improv they did for like every scene.(I know you’re talking about you’d rather hear them talk outside of the context of the movie, for the record)
Specter and the City.
“Feig’s GB was bad regardless of the premise and casting. No focus, excessive dependence on one-liners.”
Correct, but people decided it was bad before it came out, without seeing it.
To pretend that it wasn’t a hit because it wasn’t a great movie is stupid, and it implies that the Tranformers movies are GOOD movies, because lots of people saw them.
No focus, excessive dependence on one-liners. IDK, sounds pretty faithful to the original to me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There’s a lot less ad-libbing in the original than people think.Not that Aykroyd is the most reliable source, but he had it at ~80%.
tbf i think horror-comedy is a tough genre to be successful in. tends to be higher budget than typical comedies but w/o much more appeal. just my uninformed opinion.
I don’t know if that’s a good comparison because I think Feig’s GB leaned (more like jumped in) in to that narrative really early on, if not immediately.
Eh, it might’ve. I can’t remember. Then again, apparently this flick (Banks’s) did as well?
I mean, the film itself espouses a lot of the “gendered agenda” she’s claiming she had nothing to do with. So blaming the narratives they created themselves is certainly one way to go. But it’s really not hard to pivot when promoting a movie, if they really wanted to. Just look at WB denying stuff pretty hard, in the lead up to Barbie. I have a hard time believing a studio- who wants to make as much money as possible- would have a marketing strategy built on alienating any potential ticket buyers.
Yeah, they were doing things like endorsing presidential candidates. For better or worse, that movie’s marketing actively played into the whole “finally, a Ghostbusters film for women!” thing.
It’s also causes some of the reverse: anyone who said, say, that the first Wonder Woman movie had a underwhelming bog-standard ending that diminished the good that came before it was suddenly being told they were fighting, ignoring or undermining a sociopolitical fight that they absolutely hadn’t intended.
Muddying the waters even further were the CHUDs who just repeated those critiques without actually understanding them because they actually didn’t like the female-led movie just because it was female-led, making those who had legitimate critiques look just as bad as the CHUDs simply by comparison. I.e. the worst people you know agreeing with you for terrible reasons.
If only there was a bizarrely good recent pastel-colored movie to point out the pain and stress of dealing with such constant contradictions and hypocrisies in our culture’s gender constructsHEYWAITAMINUTE!
Nothing to add there. Yep.
No. The entire movie’s premise was “let’s do a remake of ghostbusters but we’re going to swap genders”.
It was made as a sociopolitical experiment, and it failed badly because
A-Nobody liked the idea
B-It couldn’t stand against the massive cult classic status of the orginal movies
C-the movie was just bad.
It’s always such a baffling choice to remake a wildly popular/beloved film, because it’s highly unlikely that you’ll be able to make it as well or better, and even if you do nostalgia will mean that the original will be graded on a bit of a curve.Star Trek Into Darkness is another example of a movie that did this and was also absolutely terrible. TWoK is widely regarded as the best of the Star Trek films, yet Abrams decided that it would be a great idea to remake it, going so far as retooling both the “KHAAAAAAN” scream and Spock’s death by switching Kirk and Spock’s roles in both of those.If the 2016 Ghostbusters film had told its own story it might’ve stood a chance, similarly to how the 2009 Star Trek movie was popular and successful; that was a JJ Abrams movie in Star Trek wrapping, and a Paul Feig movie in Ghostbusters wrapping could’ve been fun. But the latter already had the weight of people pining for a third GB movie for years hurting it, and that issue was compounded by making it a reboot that tried to hit the same story beats as the original, but Feig-ified. The chuds certainly didn’t help, but a good enough movie could’ve ameliorated that to some extent and probably a significant one IMO.
Meh. The same amount of toxic chud manbabies (probably even more) have weighed in the exact same way on the Barbie movie and that has made nearly a Billion, sometimes a shitty movie is just a shitty movie and blaming its Box Office failure on the usual suspects is a distraction tactic.
It didn’t help that with all the talent involved they couldn’t cobble together a good trailer. I never saw it because it looked terrible, not because it had women as Ghostbusters.
I don’t mind the fact that it was a feminist action movie, and I went to that movie in the theater because I thought it would be a fun, popcorn flick (It wasn’t a good movie independent of any agenda, just like Cocaine Bear wasn’t) But they did an opening credits scene that was about random women and generalized women achievement and so it’s a little weird to suggest that the very obvious text of “THIS IS AN ACHIEVEMENT FOR WOMEN” wasn’t there.
I see what she is saying because it is true that the marketing limited the movie. However, my recollection is that she fed into the narrative of it being a feminist film herself. There were many reasons the movie flopped. People were not clamoring for a reboot of another nostalgia based film that was still fresh in their minds. Other than Stewart (who had some negative press at the time) their were no notable actors attached to the film (at least none that would drive interest). Most importantly, by all accounts it was at best a middling movie so word of mouth and critical support was not there to help carry it.
The gender agenda was the movie’s best quality.
ROTFLMMFAO.
If only they’d pushed a “make it good” agenda onto it instead, amirite?Thank you, thank you, I’m here all week. Try the chicken.
I’m going to give it a re-watch. It wasn’t that bad when I watched it. I’d be interested to see what she envisioned before interference. Kristen Stewart wouldn’t have been sold on the project that wasn’t interesting to start with.
… We are still talking about the Kristen Stewart who was in no less than five Twilight movies, right? And Snow White and the Huntsman?
Hey Scotty, I have not watched those movies so I don’t have a decent comeback for you.
No worries; I’m happy to wait!
She said the same thing, almost verbatim, to Variety last year. Why is this coming around again?
https://variety.com/2022/film/news/elizabeth-banks-regrets-charlies-angels-marketing-1235385836/
How did we come around to the idea that men never watched Charlie’s Angels?
I’m sure its all those Farrah Fawcett posters that girls had hanging in their rooms during the 70s…
yeh, i always assumed its popularity and place in cultural memory was due to boobs and farrah fawcett and farrah fawcett boobs.
Tells you everything you need to know.
Never missed it.
its a fucking harem fantasy for fucks sake. no men watch barbarella either i bet.
I wonder if the answer for why Charlie’s Angels flopped was simply that the interest was limited. How many people really have that much affinity for a show that had a brief moment of cultural relevance decades ago? How much market share was it really going to capture? Whereas Barbie is one of those pop culture artifacts that transcends even the brand, to become a byword, like Coke is for all softdrinks, or Band-Aid for all bandages. A film about Barbie seems to me much more of a sure thing than a film about Charlie’s Angels. Which isn’t to take away from what Greta Gerwig achieved. It could have easily been a soul-less film made purely for cash. But she made something really special.
Yea I think this is fair. The Man From U.N.C.L.E. bombed pretty hard too and that was actually a pretty fun and well-made movie. Hollywood overrates the value of refreshing decades-old IP. Even if they succeed like with Mission Impossible, I have doubts it has much to do with the franchise name at all.
I was aware of the existence of the MI tv show but am pretty sure I’ve never seen an episode. I knew the epic theme. So my connection to the IP was roughly zilch, then it turned out to be a tightly plotted, well-made spy thriller with a great cast and some excellent setpieces. As ever, the first lesson is to make a good movie that can stand on its own.
The difference is the MI movies have almost nothing to do with the original show and are just Tom Cruise action vehicles. Meanwhile, Charlies Angels and other types, keep trying to call back to the original show and play up the nostalgia which doesn’t work for millennials or younger who have no memories of the original.
The first one was built on the back of the show – Peter Graves wouldn’t come back because he didn’t like the reveal that his character had turned evil, so they got Jon Voight.
The difference is, unlike most of the reboots of ‘60s and ‘70s shows, Cruise has enough star power to allow the franchise to live in independent of the source material.
I liked The Man from U.N.C.L.E as well and thought it really showcased Cavill’s charm in a way the Superman movies never did.I think that movie proves a point that most of these IPs are tied to the decade that they were most popular and if you miss that nostalgia window you are just out of luck.Most of the 70’s shows had their moment in the late 90s to early 2000s for Gen Xers who were kids in the 70s hitting their 30s. The Brady Bunch movie was a success then, try imaging that working now. Most just came and went like SWAT, Starsky & Hutch, etc. The earlier Charlie’s Angels movies hit that window.
Just like the 60s shows had their moment in the late 80s and early 90s, The Fugitive being one of the rare successes. Others failed, remember Dragnet (1987)? It’s probably better if you didn’t. Mission Impossible came just at the end of that period (1996) and almost fizzled out to the point they were going to replace Cruise until it became just about Cruise doing crazy shit.With hitting your 30s as a guide, we are are just leaving the 80s nostalgia window and heading into a 90s nostalgia window. So if you are betting on that Last Starfighter remake getting made you should take the under.
hot taek: my biggest issue with the Man from UNCLE was the casting. I like Cavill in general and this was before Hammer was a psycho, but I just found them to have no chemistry and to be pretty unlikable in their roles. Maybe that was by design as I never saw the show, but it was tough to get into it. But other than that? Lot of cool elements to that movie that could have worked.
I really liked Cavill and Vikander in the movie and thought Vikander had great chemistry with both male leads. Hammer didn’t quite work but was fine. I can see what you mean that Cavill and Hammer didn’t play off of each other well enough.
I think the same thing about Rocky & Bullwinkle. They’re tried several times to bring that back, but nobody seems interested. It was kind of a cult series to begin with, and that cult hasn’t really expanded enough to be a multi-million dollar franchise.
Meanwhile look at the big hit this year: everyone knows Mario and Barbie, and regardless of quality, you can look at those films and think “Yup, that’s Mario and Barbie alright.” The Ninja Turtles take really well to fresh takes, so I think Mutant Mayhem will be a success.
But Charlie’s Angels? It’s a 70s TV dinosaur that had a friggin’ ridiculous reboot with no pop culture staying power, so Banks’ film had no chance.
I also don’t get her annoyance at pushing the “girl power” angle, because that was the selling point of the whole franchise to begin with. Either lean into it, or don’t.
Charlie’s Angels was the Baywatch of its time. People watched mostly for the smoking hot leads.
Oh yeah, Baywatch movie didn’t do so hot either, now did it?
Nope, because it misunderstood the cheesy appeal of the original show.
I’d argue that the “Girl Power” moniker for the original Charlie’s Angels was a retrospective justification. Look up “Jiggle TV” on Google, and guess which show you’ll see prominently in the results? Empowering women probably wasn’t the priority of the executives who created Charlie’s Angels.Kind of like the failed Rocky and Bullwinkle reboots never understood that the appeal of the original was the simple, low budget artwork paired with snappy dialogue. The McG Charlie’s Angels movies at least understood the more salacious appeal of the show, but they smartly played off this for the Girl Power aspect. Take away the jiggle and the Girl Power, and what do you have? Nothing particularly interesting.
The funny part is I think Banks’ version could’ve been more distinct by upping the queer element, especially since Kristin Stewart has become a bisexual icon. Something by ladies for ladies. I mean, look at Atomic Blonde.
you can maybe point to the reboot movies from early 2000s as a north star, but they blew that by not following the ingredients – ie fill it with movie stars, give it a massive budget and hire an interesting first-time director*.stewart is obviously a name, but hanging it on her, giving it a 50’ish million dollar budget and having it spearheaded by the director of pitch perfect 2 just doesn’t make sense. *not defending mcg as a creative or a man, but he was the right person for the job at the time.
Those movies are on cable a lot and while they’re cringey in a way most culture from the early aughts are cringey (what a horrible time for almost everything), they’re still a lot of fun. They have a lot of energy and inventiveness and do not in any way shape or form take it seriously.
Yeah, Charlie’s Angels was barely good TV by the standards of the late 70s, the movies succeeded because they starred probably the 3 biggest women in Hollywood at the time, not because of some weird misguided nostalgia for the original. It’s like how The A Team wasn’t actually that big of a deal back in the day, but it became memes to the point that Hollywood decided we needed an A-Team reboot film, which then immediately tanked because nobody actually cares about the A-Team….with that said I stan the A-Team movie, it’s actually pretty fun. Like, I don’t think there was ever a future where they resurrected The A-Team as a Fast and the Furious style tentpole film franchise, but I enjoyed it as a dumb, somewhat comedic, action flick.
I think the only way to do Charlie’s Angels is to make it a period piece, everything about it just screams 70’s. I haven’t seen any of the movies, but I would probably go if it was set in the 70’s.
This is a very good point. Coincidentally, I was just reading something that cited the top rated shows for rural audiences during the early 1970s: Gunsmoke, The Man from Shiloh, Hee Haw, and Love American Style.I mean, Gunsmoke may not have been profound, but it *mattered* during the 1960s through the early 1970s. Today, there’s no audience for it whatsoever except maybe among retirees, and I wouldn’t even be sure about that. It’s kind of like how in 50 years from now I (hope) there won’t be an audience for a straight CSI or NCIS reboot, although I suspect the genre has more chance of surviving than Westerns.Nor for that matter did Bionic Woman do anything but fall flat on its face back in the naughts; the nostalgia for it simply wasn’t there even before the casting didn’t quite work.Some things update well. Others are the Love Boat.
Seems like the best reboots are the ones that take the original idea of something that’s not super-well-remembered beyond the title and some general idea and make it into something entertaining to a wide-audience while the worst ones take something that’s fairly well-known and throw a mediocre (at best) reboot out to the public without offering much in the way of a new take on the material.
heh my wife is a huge Gunsmoke fan and as a result i’ve seen at least the first 13 seasons worth of episodes.the early black and white episodes are often quite good in their own way (minus all the white actors in redface), also kind of fascinating because it was the really the first show of its kind iirc. but i’m no expert.sorry this isn’t any kind of refutation of your argument, just a needless sidetrack lol
Yep. As much as it’s true that known IP reduces risk… I feel like Hollywood has constantly had a very different idea of what “known IP” means for average people. Witness: the early 90s proto-superhero movies based on stuff like a minor comic book (The Rocketeer), radio serials (The Shadow) or comic strips (The Phantom, Dick Tracy). None of those were incredibly relevant by the time the movies came out, and while I love all of them (okay, aside from Dick Tracy), you get the sense that it was a bunch of old guys who still thought everyone out there remembered those properties who greenlit the films.
Exactly. A lot of these projects seem greenlit by studio execs doing their best impression of Principal Skinner pondering if he’s out of touch, before concluding it’s the kids who are out of touch. Like how every decade or so they try to do another Peter Pan movie and like…does anyone care about Peter Pan outside of aging Boomers who remember the Disney, or watching Mary Martin as Pan on television. Not every generation is going to respond the same way to something, and I wish they wouldn’t take offense when some new attempt gets rejected. Like, I adore Daria, and yearn for a reboot (which has been in the works for several. years now with no sign of progress). But I’m also okay with the fact that younger generations might night respond to that series or a revival as I would hope they would. It doesn’t change what it matters to me.
Yeah, there was a trend where Hollywood suits didn’t understand that Batman’s appeal is based on more than the fact that he was in a comic so they greenlit stuff like Brenda Starr and The Phantom (those same suits also not understanding the difference between comic strips and comic books).
What I really hated was the anti pic-a-nic basket marketing of Cocaine Bear.
The first two Charlie’s Angels movies were energetic, campy, fun popcorn movies that were perfectly acceptable wastes of a few hours. The trailer for the reboot looked like a humorless, generic slog.
Listen, I loved her in Wet Hot American Summer as much as the next guy, but with a filmography that includes Project 43, Pitch Perfect 2, Charlie’s Angels, and Cocaine Bear, is it possible that Banks just isn’t that talented a filmmaker?
So, like the original hook of Charlie’s Angels was isn’t it rather fun and exciting, these women who are attractive yet smart as a whip and can kick ass? However, once you got past that hook, Charlie’s Angels was pretty much a standard 1970’s detective show, along the lines of Mannix or The Rockford Files, or perhaps more appropriately Starsky & Hutch. T&A aside, the watch ability of a given episode depended on how good a mystery the writers presented the audience.FWIW, I don’t think any of the attempts at rebooting Charlies Angels have attempted to do something like the original hit show. There’s this idea that the Angels have to be all silly and wisecracking all the time. Like, I know this sounds crazy, but what if someone did a movie about three attractive, intelligent women who use their brains to investigate and solve a crime, rather than just posing and spouting off one liners and doing choreographed Kung Fu moves?
Like, I know this sounds crazy, but what if someone did a movie about three attractive, intelligent women who use their brains to investigate and solve a crime, rather than just posing and spouting off one liners and doing choreographed Kung Fu moves? Wasn’t there a movie just like that released within the last year or so that bombed? I can’t remember the cast or the title, and I don’t think it was based on an existing IP.
The 355?
Movies aren’t really a great medium for showing off brainy detective work, are they? It happens now and then but surely that’s best on TV.
It was about the titties. Period. Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu don’t have titties. I don’t know about Cameron Diaz. Seriously. It the 70’s.
The really funny thing is, the alt-right chuds could have gotten a ton of mileage out of Cocaine Bear if only they could actually think for themselves instead of just chasing the really obvious targets. A true story about a male bear that ignominiously died after eating a bunch of drugs becomes a movie about a female bear that becomes a fucking badass after eating a bunch of drugs, and in the end the true villain is a textbook toxic male played by a beloved actor who specialized in various levels of that character throughout his whole career.
I think calling Cocaine Bear a bad movie is reductive, but I did find it tonally schizophrenic. The trailers marketed it as a horror comedy, but there are some weird dramatic turns throughout, and Isiah Whitlock gives what I can charitably call a “confused” performance. The pivot toward tepid family drama during the climax didn’t really work either.I haven’t seen Banks’ version of Charlie’s Angels, but I did enjoy the Liu/Barrymore/Diaz version in college (for various reasons). So, my limited experience with Banks as a director leads me to believe that her version’s failure has less to do with women in action movies and more to do with her not being a competent director. But someone feel free to correct me.
I think calling Cocaine Bear a bad movie is reductive, but I did find it tonally schizophrenic. The trailers marketed it as a horror comedy, but there are some weird dramatic turns throughout, and Isiah Whitlock gives what I can charitably call a “confused” performance. The pivot toward tepid family drama during the climax didn’t really work either.It was a tonal mess, but that’s not surprising when you need to eek-out 90 minutes from a real life story that consists of: “A bear stumbled upon some misplaced kilos of cocaine and overdosed.” That’s not a lot to work with, especially when you consider that drug dealers literally lose significantly more drugs to various misadventures than they did in the real-life story (hence why nobody ever went looking for it; simply not worth it from a financial standpoint).
Their issue was trying to make an inherently absurd premise “smart”, and they ended up being too clever by half. They should’ve either gone fully absurd (ala Snakes on a Plane), or straight horror. It’s hard to do subtle horror or subtle comedy well if the fundamental premise of either (such as the existence of a cocaine-crazed bear on the loose) lacks any subtlety.
I think calling Cocaine Bear a bad movie is reductive, but I did find it tonally schizophrenic. The trailers marketed it as a horror comedy, but there are some weird dramatic turns throughout, and Isiah Whitlock gives what I can charitably call a “confused” performance. The pivot toward tepid family drama during the climax didn’t really work either.It was a tonal mess, but that’s not surprising when you need to eek-out 90 minutes from a real life story that consists of: “A bear stumbled upon some misplaced kilos of cocaine and overdosed.” That’s not a lot to work with, especially when you consider that drug dealers literally lose significantly more drugs to various misadventures than they did in the real-life story (hence why nobody ever went looking for it; simply not worth it from a financial standpoint).
Their issue was trying to make an inherently absurd premise “smart”, and they ended up being too clever by half. They should’ve either gone fully absurd (ala Snakes on a Plane), or straight horror. It’s hard to do subtle horror or subtle comedy well if the fundamental premise of either (such as the existence of a cocaine-crazed bear on the loose) lacks any subtlety.
Snakes on a Plane is definitely a comparison I would use. Was it a “great” movie? No. Did it know exactly what it wanted to do and refused to deviate from that mission for a full 90 minutes? Absolutely.
In other news, The Chad is still stuck.
i mean, sure they could make another good Charlie’s Angels movie, but the McG movies really felt like enough. iow i don’t think there was a lot of pent-up demand for Banks’ movie in the 1st place, and then it didn’t turn out greatsidenote: i really can’t believe cocaine bear is a hit. ugh