A Big Huge Flop
So the news from last weekend is that the unnecessary and completely un-asked for reboot of Charlie’s Angels flopped hard.
It took a mere $8 million on its opening day. That’s pretty bad, even for a film with a modest budget. Deadline has a really good article on the film’s disastrous opening, and why it happened:
How ‘Charlie’s Angels’ Fell From Grace At The Box Office With An $8M+ Opening
Updated with Sunday figures: In the wake of Terminator: Dark Fate’s failure at the B.O., and Paramount’s recent decision to make Beverly Cops 4 for Netflix, we have the further breakdown of cinema IP in Sony’s Charlie’s Angels reboot, which is tanking with a God-awful $8.6M domestic opening, $27.
Basically, at least Deadline blames this disaster on a bad script, lack of star power and bad (more like non-existent) marketing.
This Charlie’s Angels was directed by actress Elizabeth Banks (this is her fourth time directing, I think – she directed another franchise reboot, Power Rangers from 2017). And guess what her reaction to her film’s belly flop was?
Well, in a word, predictable:
Elizabeth Banks on ‘Charlie’s Angels’ reboot criticism: ‘You’ve had 37 ‘Spider-Man’ movies’
In the age of reboots, revivals, and sequels, Elizabeth Banks wants to know why people are criticizing her for creating another chapter in the Charlie’s Angels franchise. In a recent profile in WSJ Magazine , the Charlie’s Angels writer/director/star responded to the criticism she’s been facing for rebooting the franchise with Kristen Stewart, Ella Balinska, and Naomi Scott.
Yes, it’s some evil white dude’s fault, because these Evil White Men would rather watch 37 Spider-Man movies than her boring, paint-by-numbers feminazi action flick.
No, Lizzie, it tanked because a) it wasn’t all that good, b) the biggest star you managed to get was the very wooden Kristen Stewart, who hasn’t been a box-office draw since Snow White and the Huntsman way back in 2012 and c) Sony didn’t have much faith in it, which is why they cancelled some expensive ads.
This has nothing to do with evil white men or whatever. It has everything to do with the fact that one, hardly anybody knew it was coming out, and out of the people that did know, simply weren’t interested.
I want to point out that it’s not just the “woke” crap that tanked the film, although I admit that that’s probably a big reason why it flopped. Think about the original TV show this film was based on – it was a cheesy spy show featuring a trio of beautiful women looking glamorous while kicking ass. It appealed to men because, as I said, they were beautiful and weren’t afraid to show it, and women liked it because of the strong friendship featured among the women and, of course, living vicariously through them.
It was fun, as were the McG-directed movies from the early 2000s, starring Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu. The original films were faithful to the original concept while updating it for modern times. I love those movies and yes, I am biased when I say we didn’t and don’t need a feminist version of Charlie’s Angels.
Once again, we see this horrible modern form of feminism that seems to want to punish and denigrate men in order to build women up. Nobody really likes that kind of feminism, and it turns a lot of people off. Can’t we have a “GIRL POWER” movie or TV show without trashing straight white men?
Oh, and the director, Elizabeth Banks, decided to make a lot of changes, such as making it less campy (which the whole franchise had been up to this point, which is why people liked it so much), changing Charles Townsend, the man and voice behind the agency itself, into a “concept” and symbol (oh, and spoiler alert: Charlie is actually a woman putting on a man’s voice), and giving the Angels several different Bosleys (so now Bosley is a position, not an actual character).
You can read more at Digital Spy:
Charlie’s Angels’ Elizabeth Banks didn’t want the movie to be “campy”
Charlie’s Angels director Elizabeth Banks has opened up about the challenge of striking the right tone in the new movie, saying she didn’t want to make a “campy” film. Starring Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott and newcomer Ella Balinska, the new Charlie’s Angels will see the Townsend Agency expand internationally, with multiple teams of highly-trained Angels taking on some of the toughest missions from around the world.
Oh, and Kristen Stewart’s character, Sabina, is the first lesbian/bisexual/whatever Angel, because that was totally necessary. Talk about typecasting too.
Then there’s this headline. So what if men didn’t go see this movie? It’s pretty obvious that a lot of women didn’t go see this movie either. Of course, she said this before the film’s disastrous opening.
Of course, men do go see women in action movies. There’s a lot of successful action films with women either in the starring role or in a prominent supporting role. How else would she explain the success of two movies from earlier this year, Alita: Battle Angel and Captain Marvel, action both films starring women, both of which did very well at the box office?
They just didn’t go see your film, and that’s probably because it wasn’t all that good.
Oh, and I can’t forget this:
Could’ve sworn she said she didn’t want to make an overly political film. Well, from the reviews I’ve read, none of the feminist messaging in the film were sneaky or subtle. They were all obnoxiously in-your-face and painfully obvious.
And this:
Elizabeth Banks made ‘Charlie’s Angels’ to celebrate women at work
The actress, producer, and director shares her motivations for making the latest ‘Charlie’s Angels’ film-and what it takes to succeed in Hollywood today.
This is just so dumb. There’s been a gazillion films depicting women at work, including the freaking TV series this film is based on!!!! For fuck’s sake there’s a film called Working Girl!
But wait…there’s more!
Elizabeth Banks Says ‘Captain Marvel,’ ‘Wonder Woman’ Were Hits Because They Belong to ‘Male Genre’
The new “Charlie’s Angeles” couldn’t even crack the $9 million mark at the box office over its opening weekend. The well-reviewed “Charlie’s Angels” reboot is the latest studio box office bomb of the fall movie season, following in the footsteps of such disasters as “The Goldfinch,” “Gemini Man,” “Motherless Brooklyn,” and “Terminator: Dark Fate.”
According to Elizabeth Banks, Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel don’t count because they’re comic book movies, and comic books are a “man’s domain” or something.
““They’ll go and see a comic book movie with Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel because that’s a male genre,” Banks told the Sun. “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.’”
“By the way, I’m happy for those characters to have box office success,” Banks adds, “but we need more women’s voices supported with money because that’s the power. The power is in the money.””
Wonder Woman was directed by a woman, Patty Jenkins. Captain Marvel was directed by two people – one of them Anna Boden, a woman, who also is one of three people credited with writing the screenplay. Oh, but because they’re comic book movies, their voices don’t count.
Oh, and the original Charlie’s Angels films were produced by Drew Barrymore. But yeah, women’s voices aren’t being heard, or some such shit.
This is gaslighting. All this “I just wanna make a feminist film because there’s no movies for women waaaaah” bullshit when there’s clearly evidence to the contrary is, I believe, promoted by the mainstream media to make us all insane and angry. Unfortunately, if this is the case, it’s working on me really well.
Either that, or they think history began when they were born.
Anyway, this movie flopped, along with the highly insulting Terminator: Dark Fate and it just makes me so happy. Now all I need to wrap up a great year is for the sequel to Alita: Battle Angel be announced.