In case you haven’t heard, the latest remake of Charlie’s Angels” absolutely bombed at the box office.
As in, bombed hard. The movie, which stars Kristen Stewart and two other actresses you’ve never heard of, raked in a paltry $8.6 million on opening weekend in North America (including Thursday), even less than the modest $12-15 million it was expected to pull.
Now, I haven’t seen the movie. Largely because I’ve forgotten it was even hitting theaters, and also because I’d rather detail my oven with a toothbrush than watch Stewart stumble her way through another over-CGI'd movie plot with her mouth hanging open like a fish that’s been left out too long on a dry dock.
But according to the movie’s director, fellow actress Elizabeth Banks, the movie flopped not because it’s a B-level adaptation of an already ridiculous premise starring actresses no one's ever heard of, but because men are sexist. Or something.
Yep, according to this, Banks blamed men’s unwillingness to go see action movies that star women in their lead roles for her movie’s embarrassing flop.
“Look, people have to buy tickets to this movie, too. This movie has to make money,” she said. “If this movie doesn’t make money, it reinforces a stereotype in Hollywood that men don’t go see women do action movies.”
When faced with the facts that several action movies starring women have actually done exceptionally well at the box office, such as “Wonder Woman” featuring Gal Gadot or “Captain Marvel” starring Brie Larson, Banks hedged, saying those movies only succeeded because they were well-known comic book stories that ultimately supported a male-dominated franchise.
“They’ll go and see a comic book movie with Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel because that’s a male genre,” Banks told the Sun. “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,” Banks added. “But we need more women’s voices supported with money because that’s the power. The power is in the money.”
Of course, Banks had also admitted that she "was adamant that there be hugging in the movie,” saying, "That’s what distinguishes Charlie’s Angels from James Bond, Jason Bourne, Mission: Impossible. This is what you get to do in the girl version of this movie that draws you in because it feels real. It is real. I cry at work.”
And she wonders why men didn't flock to witness her epic feminist tear-fest. A true shock, I tell you.
Well, I’m not a liberal, so I can only speak for myself and not other women et al. But I can say that I, a woman, didn’t go see the movie, and not because it starred women.
I didn't go see it because even judging by the three-minute trailer, it's cornier than a field in Iowa. And like it or not, that's not a dude's fault.