Why did the new “Charlie’s Angels” film flop at the box office? If you guessed that the patriarchy is trying to keep women under their thumb and don’t trust their female counterparts to deliver a good film, you would be correct, according to the film’s director Elizabeth Banks.
The new reboot of the classic 1970’s television show tanked at the box office, bringing in only $8.6 million on opening day and costing $50 million to make, according to The Blaze. This makes the film a bigger stinker than the trash can Oscar the Grouch lives in on Sesame Street. However, Banks did not waste the opportunity to blame her failure on the lack of trust in female directors in Hollywood.
When asked about the tremendous success of other action films with strong female characters in lead roles (such as those in the realm of comic books), Banks dismissed the big-screen smash hits as “feeding” the larger universe of male-dominated characters.
“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,” Banks said in a recent interview with The Herald Sun.
Is it just me or does this sound like an elitist woman pouting because people chose not to see her movie? Newsflash, honeybun – if your movie didn’t do well, it’s not the fault of men in your industry. Use that as motivation to make a better movie that people actually want to see instead of pouting like a three-year-old little girl who wasn’t allowed to eat candy before supper.
The vast majority of moviegoers spend their dollars on films that actually capture their attention and entertain them in some way. When I go to the movies, I couldn’t care less about the gender, sex, religion or anything else pertaining to the personal lives of the cast and crew behind the film. I want a good movie that keeps me hooked from the beginning until the rolling of the credits. If people don’t want to spend their hard-earned money to see a film, anyone with a shred of intelligence would know they could have created a better story instead of blaming others for their own failures.
Perhaps the reason Bank’s version of “Charlie’s Angels” didn’t fly with moviegoers has nothing to do with the fact that it was directed by a woman and is simply because the public doesn’t want to see some rehashing of a 1970s TV show that has been done now for the fourth time. Hollywood has a horrible tendency to attempt to remake old movies that were successful in the past because they can’t seem to come up with new and exciting stories to tell. Maybe, just maybe, the flop of the new “Charlie’s Angels” film should incentivize writers and directors to come up with fresh ideas instead of using their own losses to claim victimhood status.
For the record, I love films with a strong female lead if the story grabs me. This is the reason I loved the new biopic on the life of Harriet Tubman, and the Wonder Woman film that made Gal Gadot a superstar. These stories were told well and stirred something inside of me. (Oh, by the way, Elizabeth – “Wonder Woman” is the only reason I continue to watch DC’s movies related to the “Justice League” because I was quite impressed with Gal Gadot’s representation of the character, not the other way around.)
If you are the empowered feminist that you would have us believe you are, make better movies that will move people to give you the recognition you so feel you deserve. This will make your successes much sweeter instead of pleading with your audience to see your film in the name of feminism. And pouting like a spoiled brat when they do not.