After blaming men for her movie’s failure at the box office, actress-turned-director Elizabeth Banks said she is still proud of her “Charlie’s Angels” reboot.
In a tweet on Monday, Banks said, “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.”
Banks’ tweet received largely positive responses, with some feminists chastising the sisterhood for not showing up to movie about strong women.
“People preach about strong female characters and more female-led films woman and diversity but never show up when they get one,” said one Twitter user. “They’re all talk, no action. you are amazing for all you did all by yourself and deserved better. love you and the movie!”
“Flop? Getting a movie made and helming it is a massive non-flop. Pull your shoulders back and do it again,” said another user.
“It didn’t flop because it’s bad, it flopped because people were too proud to accept it could be good. It wasn’t given a chance. The movie was amazing. Thank you so much for making it,” said another.
Leading up to the movie’s release, Elizabeth Banks blamed men and sexism for the film’s poor box office tracking.
“Look, people have to buy tickets to this movie, too. This movie has to make money,” Banks told the Herald Sun. “If this movie doesn’t make money it reinforces a stereotype in Hollywood that men don’t go see women do action movies.”
When confronted with examples that clearly cut her thesis to shreds, such as the success of “Captain Marvel” or “Wonder Woman,” Banks said those movies earned money because they existed in a male genre.
“They’ll go and see a comic book movie with Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel because that’s a male genre,” she said. “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.”
Other Twitter users were quick to call out Banks.
“I just think it’s funny you call wonder woman a Male genre movie, a woman directed it,” tweeted one user. “Patty Jenkins had to overcome a lot and made her movie successful, it’s not about the genre it’s about advertising. I didn’t hear about the movie till 2 weeks before release date.”
“Come on… The movie’s success doesn’t depend on whether men see it. Half the population is women and they didn’t see it either,” tweeted another user.
The “Charlie’s Angels” reboot crashed earned an abysmal $8.6 million at the domestic box office, and a global haul of just $19.3 million, for a worldwide total of $26.1 million. The film had a $48 million budget before marketing costs.
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