New ‘Charlie’s Angels’ Won’t Be Concerned With Boyfriends Or Calling Their Mom, Says Director Elizabeth Banks
Since it sounds like Sony’s attempt to reboot theMen in Blackfranchiseisn’t yielding very good results, the studio will have to hold out hope that their other franchise reboot coming later this year will do the trick.
Charlie’s Angelsis coming back to the big screen in November withKristen Stewart,Naomi Scott, andElla Balinskaas the dangerous trio of spiessent out on missions by a rich benefactor named Charles Townsend. But this time, the Angels are part of a global spy franchise, and the girls won’t be worrying about stuff like finding a boyfriend or calling their mom back. DirectorElizabeth Bankswants this to be a movie about women at work, working together and kicking ass.
In a newHollywood Reporterprofile on Elizabeth Banks and her producing partnerMax Handelman, who are also married and have two sons, Banks discusses how their partnership allowed her the ability to take advantage of opportunities that the industry simply wasn’t giving her. Banks explained how their relationship led to their business partnership:
“When we were looking at how to make a life together, I felt like he was a real bloodhound for material and had a really good eye for things. And I had more ambition for myself than was available to me in our industry, right? So I just kept wondering when the role and the movie that I was born to play was going to happen, and it just never was happening. I started paving my own way, a little bit out of necessity, a little bit out of ambition, a little bit out of resentment.”
Therefore, it’s no wonder that in Elizabeth Banks' approach toCharlie’s Angelsshe wanted to make a movie that was about women in the workforce. That’s exactly where the concept ofCharlie’s Angelscame from in the 1970s, and with all the headlines surrounding women’s rights and the #MeToo movement, there’s no better time to bring back the idea of the strength of women in the workplace, especially when that workplace involves global action and espionage. Banks explains:
“I went back to the original idea inCharlie’s Angels, which was that women were in the workforce. And all of the things that I feel are happening in the women’s movement right now, whether it be #MeToo, or — I say this in a time of dire straits for women’s rights in this country right now — but I feel like all those things are happening because women are in the workforce in greater numbers than ever in human history. I just wanted to make a movie about women at work, working together. I wanted to make a movie that was not about their boyfriends that they didn’t see enough, or the cats they didn’t feed, or the mother that they didn’t call, because I don’t worry about those things in my daily life. And so, in that way, I felt like we were updating the idea ofCharlie’s Angels.”
The question is whether Elizabeth Banks has the directing chops to pull off a global scale action movie like this. As a big screen director, she’s only helmed a segment fromMovie 43and the disappointing sequelPitch Perfect 2. The latter sequel’s less than stellar follow-up to the original a capella comedy hit shouldn’t entirely fall on the shoulders of Banks though. The development felt rushed and the script felt like it needed more time in the oven before ending up in front of the camera. So maybeCharlie’s Angelsis the opportunity Banks needs to show what she can really do behind the camera. We’ll find out when the movie opens onNovember 15, 2019.
