Go Woke, Go Broke: ‘Charlies Angels' Bombs at the Box-Office

Is it that surprising for us to learn “Charlie’s Angels” has totally bombed at the box-office this weekend? The “woke” reboot is about to open with a God-awful $8.2M. Yikes.

In an article I wrote titles Post-Male-Gaze ‘Charlie's Angels', I warned that this one was misguided from the start:

They are NOT walking around in swimsuits, okay? But they’re REALLY smart and they can kick male ass! That’s what the trailer is telling me, but it all comes off as superficial rather than exuding any sort of believability, which what this thing desperately needs if it wants to achieve its goal of sucking us into its espionage world. Imagine the paycheck Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, and Ella Balinska must have gotten for this … but can anyone actually suspend disbelief and coherently argue that these gals have the chops to beat superimposing deep state assassins? Not a chance.

The Elizabeth Banks-directed-written and produced movie was never intended to emulate director McG’s aught-released movies of the popular TV series. No, Banks’ film was supposed to be a sort of feminist ‘Angels’ — which always felt like a misguided idea considering the gist of ‘Angels’, whether on TV or film, was always about the ‘male gaze.’

This ‘Angels’ is the latest example of a ‘woke’ franchise reboot failing with American audiences. Just last week a similar attempt at rebooting ‘Terminator’ with all-female and inclusive casting bombed. And so, are movie audiences “sexist” for trying to steer clear of a hyper-politicized film like this one and “Terminator: Dark Fate”? Of course not. Movies are about escapism for many, and the obvious, too on-the-nose shadings of this ‘Angels’ just didn’t connect with America.

Supporting the #Metoo and #Timesup movements doesn’t mean people want to be force-fed women empowerment messages as well in their escapist entertainment. And so, where were all the young women who allegedly wore those pins and pussy hats and shouted opinions on social media these last 3 years? Not at the box office for these movies. The large elephant in the room, which nobody wants to talk about, is that men make up more than 60% of box-office attendance. While men will watch action movies starring women aimed at male audiences and have consistently for decades, American female audiences have rarely supported female-targeted action movies whether they starred women or men.

At the end of the day, maybe what studio execs should do is not use casting and reboots for political purposes and come back to the middle of the debate, which is where America actually is, and which is, oddly enough, something Barack Obama mentioned just this past week. The middle regards both sides of the issue, makes compromises, works together, has respect. Reach across those aisles instead of politicizing the product.