Elizabeth Banks tried to revive the Charlie’s Angels franchise this year with a new movie starring Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott and Ella Balinska. Unfortunately, the movie turned out to be more like the failed 2011 TV reboot than the 2000 Drew Barrymore box office smash and didn’t attract audiences. But Stewart took a positive spin on the film’s failure to light up the box office, pointing out that she really liked the movie and was “bummed” to know there likely will not be a sequel.
“Well, to be honest with you, I think if I had made a movie that wasn’t good and one that I wasn’t proud of and a lot of people saw it, I would be devastated,” Stewart explained in an interview with The Playlist. “Luckily I’m not feeling gutted because I really am proud of the movie.”
Videos by PopCulture.com
Stewart said she was not too surprised that the film was not that huge a hit, and pointed out how hard it was to promote the movie in such a politically polarized atmosphere.
“I think that the kind of the climate that we’re living in right now is polarizing and it’s weird and it’s kind of hard to promote a movie like that,” the Twilight star said. “And I think trying to have a really complicated, overly politicized feminist conversation in a five minute TV interview about Charlie’s Angels... I’m like, ‘Dude, we just wanted to have a good time.’”
Stewart later said she was disappointed she, Scott and Balinska will likely not be reuniting for a sequel.
“I’m bummed that we probably won’t make another one, but at the same time I’m really proud of the movie and I’m so happy that it exists and can live in the world,” she told The Playlist. “Because I think for a lot of people it’s still kind of important even in a very non-serious way.”
The 2019 Charlie’s Angels was the third attempt at reviving the franchise since the original TV series wrapped in 1981. In 2000 and 2003, Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu starred in two successful action blockbusters, but the series has missed with fans and critics ever since. In 2011, ABC aired an unsuccessful reboot that lasted just eight episodes.
Banks wrote and directed the newest film, which hit theaters on Nov. 15. It received mixed reviews from critics and grossed just $56 million worldwide on an estimated $48 million budget.
Sony clearly hoped Charlie’s Angels could be a hit on the scale of Wonder Woman or Captain Marvel, but it didn’t happen. Banks later told the Herald Sun she believed the movie bombed because it was not tied to a “male genre” like superhero movies.
“Look, people have to buy tickets to this movie, too. This movie has to make money,” Banks said in November. “If this movie doesn’t make money it reinforces a stereotype in Hollywood that men don’t go see women do action movies.”
Stewart stars in Benedict Andrews’ Seberg, in which she plays the late actress Jean Seberg. The Amazon Studios movie is now in limited release.
