Hollywood’s obsession with IP is more worrying than AI—and it could be its real downfall, especially as twenty-somethings at home create YouTube shorts far more exciting than yet another pointless reboot.
Case in point: THR is hearing that Sony has hired writer Pete Chiarelli (“The Proposal” and “Crazy Rich Asians”) to reboot Charlie’s Angels for the 2020s. The script is currently being written.
McG directed a pair of Angels movies in the early 2000s—starring Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu—while Elizabeth Banks and Sony attempted to revive it for a 2019 movie that proved to be a bomb.
At the time, I called Banks’ reboot a “post male gaze” version of the beloved TV show, which ran on ABC from 1976 to 1981. They are NOT walking around in swimsuits, okay? But they’re REALLY smart, and they can kick male ass! That’s what Banks was trying to tell us.
Imagine the paycheck Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, and Ella Balinska must have gotten for that film… but nobody could actually suspend disbelief and coherently argue that these gals had the chops to beat superimposed deep-state assassins? Not a chance.
“Charlie’s Angels” was a pop culture sensation back in the ‘70s, and it made stars out of Farrah Fawcett, Kate Jackson, and Jaclyn Smith, precisely because the series didn’t shy away from the sensual nature of these actresses. Banks completely stripped that away. At least McG (where’s he been?) understood why the show was as popular with men as it was with women.
Let’s hope Chiarelli understood why Banks’ movie failed, and takes that lesson to heart when writing the reboot — though I have my doubts.