Charlie’s Angels was always an odious, flagrantly fake concept — watered-down ’70s feminism, hotbod sex appeal, laughably unrealistic action. The original mid-to-late ’70s ABC TV series was always bullshit — I could never understand why anyone watched that empty-ass show. And the McG theatrical reboots — Charlie’s Angels (’00 film) and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (’03) were even stinkier, but they earned a combined box-office of over $500 million.
No such luck for Elizabeth Banks’ 2019 version, which is dead, dead, dead all over.
Deadline‘s Anthony D’Allessandro: “In the wake of Terminator: Dark Fate’s failure at the B.O., and Paramount’s recent decision to make Beverly Hills Cop 4 for Netflix, we have the further breakdown of cinema IP in Sony’s Charlie’s Angels reboot, which is tanking with a godawful $8.2M opening, 3 stars on Screen Engine-Comscore’s PostTrak, and a B+ Cinemascore.”
The Angels collapse will “further spur a WTF reaction and anxiety among film development executives in town in regards to what the hell exactly works in this have-and-have-not era of the theatrical marketplace. Many will make the hasty generalization that old, dusty IP doesn’t work, or is now deemed too risky when it’s not a superhero project. However, moviemaking is an art, not a science, and annoying as it might sound, good movies float to the top, and this Charlie’s Angels reboot didn’t have the goods going back to its script.”