Elizabeth Banks, who wrote, produced, directed, and starred as Bosley in the reboot, (Bosley was always a male role in previous Charlie’s Angels) hinted to the Herald Sun prior to the film’s release that a form of sexism from a male-dominated audience may be to blame for its financial failure.
Charlie’s Angels failed to make a splash at the box office opening weekend. Banks suggested the reason for the failure was men “don’t go see women do action movies.”
Earning just $8.6 million over the weekend, while the racing drama Ford v Ferarri topped the box office with a $31 million debut. The war film Midway came in second earning $.8.75 million, according to BoxOffice Mojo.
The first Charlie’s Angels film, which starred Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu, made a $40 million box office weekend debut in 2000 and the sequel, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle grossed $37 million in 2003, according to Box Office Mojo.
Washington Examiner writes, “But it did all the right things: It capitalized on an existing franchise, it got soccer star and Glamour ‘Woman of the Year’ Megan Rapinoe to appear in a promo spot, and it embodied the timely and supposedly lucrative aura of female empowerment. It even included two ethnically ambiguous leads and one who is sexually fluid.”
“Look, people have to buy tickets to this movie too. This movie has to make money,” Banks told the Sun. “If this movie doesn’t make money it reinforces a stereotype in Hollywood that men don’t go see women do action movies.”
Earlier this year, Captain Marvel, the Brie Larson-led Marvel film earned $1.1 billion worldwide, as well as Wonder Woman, directed by Patty Jenkins grossed $821 million in 2017. Banks dismissed the success of these two female directed movies and said they belong to “a male genre”.
“They’ll go and see a comic book movie with Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel because that’s a male genre,” Banks explained. “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, but we need more women’s voices supported with money because that’s the power. The power is in the money.”
On Monday Bank’s tweeted: “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.”
What went wrong?