Joining the ranks of Terminator: Dark Fate and Doctor Sleep, Elizabeth Banks’ Charlie’s Angels is another sequel/reboot in recent weeks that has massively tanked at the box office. The film starring Kristen Stewart, Ella Balinska and Naomi Scott grossed merely $US 8.6 million in North America and $US 19.3 million outside of North America for a global cume of $US 27.9 million. The film has a $US 55 million budget.
We can’t point to poor reviews either, as the film has a decent 61% on Rotten Tomatoes with an audience score of 81%. While I found the movie to be pretty bad (loved Kristen Stewart, though) it looks like most people who watched it at least had some fun with the popcorn flick. But much like the aforementioned Terminator: Dark Fate and Doctor Sleep, it appears that the wider audience simply does not care about this IP.
We live in an age of the big-budget blockbuster. Competition is heavy. This year alone saw the release of Captain Marvel, Shazam, Avengers: Endgame, Dark Phoenix, Joker and Spider-Man: Far From Home. These are merely movies that are based on DC and Marvel comics. There’s also the abundance of Disney live-action remakes — The Lion King, Aladdin, Dumbo — not to mention Star Wars and Jumanji that’s about to hit the big screen in December. What about Godzilla? Frozen 2? The list goes on and on and on. The most casual of audiences aren’t heading to the cinemas 20 times a year — they might be watching one movie a month and so will pick and choose their movies very carefully. This is why Terminator: Dark Fate fell flat on its face at the box office too.
I just hope big studio execs don’t look at the box office receipts of Charlie’s Angels and assume that people aren’t interested in action flicks featuring women. This has nothing to do with the gender of the film’s leads — I don’t think — and everything to do with the IP that is extremely irrelevant in 2019.
Charlie’s Angels is currently playing in Malaysian cinemas.
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