Director Elizabeth Banks has reflected on her 2019 movie Charlie’s Angels, saying there was no gendered agenda.
In 2019, Banks released an action comedy movie starring Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, and Ella Balinska as a trio of female action heroes. Unfortunately, the film underperformed at the box office, earning only $73.3 million worldwide on a $48–55 million budget. The film also received a mixed response from critics, earning only a 52% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Banks has regretted the emphasis on feminism during the marketing. “For me, regardless of what the actual product was, 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. “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.”
“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. To lose control of the narrative like that was a real bummer. You realize how the media can frame something regardless of how you’ve framed it. 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.”
“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.’ It was interesting to see how the industry sees things that star women. It was a real lesson for me.”
After Charlie’s Angels, Banks recently directed the successful horror comedy movie Cocaine Bear.
Who is in the Charlie’s Angels cast?
The cast includes Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, Ella Balinska, Elizabeth Banks, Djimon Hounsou, Sam Claflin, Noah Centineo, and Patrick Stewart.
