Elizabeth Banks has opened up about the box office failure of Charlie's Angels and noted a Hollywood double standard that she was up against as a female director.
The Hunger Games star opened up about directing the 2019 reboot and revealed her regrets about the film's "feminist" marketing, explaining that she simply wanted to make a straightforward action movie.
"There was a story around Charlie's Angels that I was creating some feminist manifesto," Banks said in an interview with The New York Times, adding that she was "just making an action movie."
She continued: "I would've liked to have made Mission: Impossible, but women aren't directing Mission: Impossible. I was able to direct an action movie, frankly, because it starred women and I'm a female director, and that is the confine right now in Hollywood."
Banks went on to say that she wishes the movie "had not been presented as just for girls, because I didn't make it just for girls."
"There was a disconnect on the marketing side of it for me," she stated.
The film suffered a poor opening weekend and made just $8.3 million, according to Box Office Mojo.
Following the box office flop, Banks took to Twitter to say she was proud of the film, tweeting: "I think women are allowed to have one or two franchises every 17 years—I feel totally fine with that."
Despite her issues with the project, Banks praised Kristen Stewart's performance in the film, saying: "Let me say I'm proud of the movie. I loved Kristen Stewart being funny and light. I loved introducing Ella Balinska to the world. I loved working with Patrick Stewart. It was an incredible experience."
On filmmaking in general, Banks said her priority is to entertain the masses and not push any sort of agenda.
"I'm just trying to make a living. I'm trying to entertain people. I don't want to deny that my choices feed my personal belief system," she said.
"What I don't want to be presented as is some sort of feminist warrior, like, woo-ha, I'm fighting the system all the time."
Banks also touched on the disparity between male and female directors in Hollywood.
"There are very few female directors in Hollywood. There are even fewer who are actresses who have become directors. I've [expletive] worked my tail off to be able to do what I'm doing," she said.
"I'm putting my head down and showing these big corporations that if they give women the opportunity to do this job, they can make a good product that can make them a profit. It's a male-dominated industry. It's a male-dominated world. That's what I'm up against, but I can't solve it and I don't really want to analyze it. It's not interesting to me."
Banks' next project is the film Cocaine Bear, which is set for release in February 2023.
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