Elizabeth Banks reveals reason for Charlie’s Angels reboot box office flop

The much anticipated Charlie’s Angels film sensationally flopped at the box office in 2019. Now, the director has explained why she thinks it went wrong.

Elizabeth Banks’ 2019 remake of Charlie’s Angels may have revamped the famous film franchise, but Banks revealed in an interview with Rolling Stone that the media fostered a “gendered agenda” behind the iteration, which ultimately influenced how it was promoted.

Banks told The New York Times last September that she wished the film “had not been presented as just for girls,” which she has now blamed the media for in her Rolling Stone interview.

She explained to the outlet that the media had deemed it as “some feminist manifesto.”

“People kept saying, ‘You’re the first female director of Charlie’s Angels!” she shared. “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.’”

Charlie’s Angels was released in 2019.

She added that her desire to direct the film didn’t arise from a “gendered agenda” of her own, but rather because she “just loved the franchise.”

“That [agenda] was very much laid on top of the work, and it was a little bit of a bummer,” she revealed. “It felt like it pigeonholed me and the audience for the movie.”

However, Banks noted that the “real bummer” was feeling like she lost “control of the [film’s] narrative.”

“You realise how the media can frame something regardless of how you’ve framed it,” she detailed. “I happen to be a woman who directed a Charlie’s Angels movie that happened to star three incredible women,” referring to Naomi Scott, Kristen Stewart, and Ella Balinska.

Elizabeth Banks, Ella Balinska, Kristen Stewart and Naomi Scott starred in the 2019 Charlie’s Angels reboot. Picture: Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images

She even highlighted how she had to ask for the film to be promoted to men in addition to women, as she remembered being told that Charlie’s Angels would have a partnership with hair salon company Drybar, a “hair-blowing thing.”

“And I was like, ‘All right … but could we have an ad during the baseball playoffs?’” she asked

She found it “interesting to see how the industry sees things that star women,” and that it proved to be a “real lesson” for her.

The film was a box-office flop, grossing $US73.3 million globally against an estimated production budget of $US55 million and an estimated advertising budget of $US50 million.

Lucy Liu, Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore’s ‘Charlie’s Angels’ movies were a success.

Banks told Variety that she “took full responsibility for” the movie’s struggle at the box office, but thankfully, she has recently garnered praise for her comedy horror film Cocaine Bear.

She told Decider that she was “thrilled” about its box office success and would feel just as thrilled if she was able to direct a sequel.

“I made a movie that I wanted to see with people that I love making things with, and I just love how it turned out,” she said. “And if I got to make something like that again, I’d be thrilled.”

This story originally appeared on Decider and was reproduced with permission