Elizabeth Banks has caused quite a stir regarding the failure of her Charlie's Angels reboot to ignite the box office. Expectations were modest but given the traction, the last cinematic reboot had with Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu and Drew Barrymore, it's still shocking to see the new take faring this badly. Banks, who acted in, wrote, produced and directed the flick, has been on the offensive, deflecting and pointing out how fans lapped up multiple Spider-Man reboots, while also indicating other female-led movies such as Captain Marvel succeeded only because they came from a male-genre -- aka comic books and the superhero realm.
However, there are a couple of other and integral reasons Banks is overlooking or intentionally shying away from as to why fans and critics alike are disinterested in this property.
Firstly, this franchise is in a field where there's a lot of saturation. The world of spies is neck-deep with James Bond movies, the Kingsman series, while we've also gotten a taste of the Bourne Identity movies over the years. Now, there are female flicks that touch this territory such as Anna or Atomic Blonde, but it appears fans prefer all-out action with the ladies as opposed to getting comedy mixed in. In any case, Charlie's Angels is a trope worn thin recently as far as concept goes, which ultimately might have done better as a rebooted TV show.
Secondly, it just wasn't a series people were begging for. A lot of this, to Banks' defense, does have to do with the plethora of sci-fi and superhero/geek content out there for the masses to consume. Studios are eating up the chance to make the next Marvel or DC hit, which is why most mainstream superhero reboots do make bank. Of course, there are cases like Neil Marshall's Hellboy where the mark is missed but to that point, you can look at weak marketing, which is also something this Charlie's Angels revamp suffered from. Still, one would think there's a space in the market for this nostalgic property but fans who loved this from back in the day may well not be the top-going cinema folk right now. Sure, both Charlie's Angels and superhero movies both have outsized action and escapist stories, but the box office draw will have a vast gap if the audience has no desire for a reboot. As for the superhero films, it's hot real estate right now and people simply want more of it -- as per Todd Phillips' billion-dollar Joker -- and less of derivative drivel.
This was seen recently with Terminator: Dark Fate as well, which also nullifies Banks' statements about the male genre. Action flicks were affiliated with the likes of Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, etc. in the '80s, and we can look to Dwayne Johnson, Keanu Reeves, and Jason Statham these days, yet women carve their paths. The old days saw Alien with Sigourney Weaver's Ripley making waves, Terminator had Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor kicking ass, and now Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman and Brie Larson's Captain Marvel are raking in the bucks with the torch passed. The point is, either your franchise is something iconic, a pillar in cinema that folks want back, or a hot asset for the new wave of filmmaking. Charlie's Angels is neither, maybe falling in the middle at best.
Also, a reason why the film could have been ignored was maybe there was a portion of the market tired of the feminist slant. We don't endorse following that route because progressive stories and female empowerment work to build inclusivity and diversity, but you do have to look at some feminist movies that flopped recently. Alita: Battle Angel and Dark Fate, which ironically had Latinx lead actors, are prime examples, and seeing as this Charlie's Angels moved away from the vanilla mold and into the persons of color promotion, as sad as it might be, the audience might have just not wanted to bite into what they perceive to be a gimmick or forced attempt at representation -- something we think is silly to boycott a film for, anyway.
Nonetheless, the original property really isn't that noteworthy in terms of quality or original, inventive and thought-provoking storytelling to think modern cinema needs it. Also, it's just not something with distinct enough characters (sorry, Bosley) to warrant people flocking to theaters. It's an average property and to win at the box office today, it might have needed to be more style than substance (here's looking at the old Transformers movies) to truly make its mark. Apart from Banks herself, Kristen Stewart and Patrick Stewart were the only A-list names involved as well, so this reboot seemed destined to fail from the start, without hope of ever garnering serious money-making momentum.
Written and directed by Elizabeth Banks, Charlie's Angels, stars Kristen Stewart, Ella Balinska, Naomi Scott, Elizabeth Banks, Patrick Stewart, Djimon Hounsou, Jonathan Tucker, Nat Faxon, Noah Centineo, Sarah Bennani, and Robert Maaser. The film is in theaters nationwide.