When it comes to the box office, Hollywood’s latest remake of an iconic TV classic recently experienced a fall from grace.
The latest "Charlie’s Angels" reboot has studio executives scratching their heads in search of an explanation as to how a popular franchise with a name director, notable cast, and $50 million production budget could fail to attract a decent-sized audience.
"Wokeness" in today’s left-tilted culture is the overarching theme mandating current politically correct standards. Hyper-liberal ideology is so accepted by Hollywood’s mainstream community it makes even the savviest power players repeatedly muck things up, financially — and otherwise.
Shoehorning far-left politics into what are supposed to be entertainment projects, Hollywood studios are continuing the pattern of releasing loser reboots, prequels, sequels, and the like, including "Ghostbusters," "Men in Black," "The Last Jedi," and "Terminator: Dark Fate."
The reason the "Charlie’s Angels" franchise was viewed by insiders as a viable project for a reboot in the first place was its long track record of success. It all began with a hit television series that starred Farrah Fawcett, Jaclyn Smith, and Kate Jackson.
Fawcett lost her super hero battle with cancer in 2009.
But at the height of her award winning career, she was a genuine cultural phenomenon, the pin-up girl of her era, setting trends for everything from a hairstyle that in modified form that's alive to this day, to a poster that would adorn bedroom walls and locker doors in untold numbers.
The wildly popular "Charlie’s Angels" TV show dominated the airwaves from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, garnering consistently high ratings. However, there was an innocent charm to the show that would be lost in the revisions to come.
As studios are so often prone to do, the television series became repackaged, and it emerged as a "Charlie’s Angels" movie in 2000, starring Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu in the lead roles.
The film debuted with a $40 million box office.
In 2003, Diaz, Barrymore, and Liu teamed up for a sequel, "Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle," which took in almost $38 million in its first weekend. Left-wing propagandists had not yet infiltrated entertainment content to the degree that would ultimately come to fruition.
So here we are 16 years after the "Charlie’s Angels" sequel.
Sont brought in Elizabeth Banks to direct, star, and write, partially due to her successful directorial debut with Universal’s "Pitch Perfect 2," but perhaps more importantly, for her having expressed her desire to redo "Charlie’s Angels" with a feminist overlay.
Opening up with a dismal $8.6 million box-office take, the current iteration of "Charlie’s Angels" makes it clear that the filmmaker had a different goal than that of making an entertaining action movie.
A montage of global images, featuring young women of supposed power, is meant to convey to moviegoers that they are in for something other than your average everyday cinematic diversion.
An opening scene features Kristen Stewart’s character subduing a male villain after he makes dastardly sexist remarks to her.
In a recent profile in WSJ Magazine, Banks evidently felt a need to highlight the film’s feminist bona fides, saying, "You’ve had 37 Spider-Man movies and you’re not complaining! I think women are allowed to have one or two action franchises every 17 years — I feel totally fine with that."
However, "Charlie’s Angels" features a number of anemic action scenes, which end up being a major disappointment to viewers who came to see something more than an insipid "You Go Girl!" after-school special.
Even the hit song from the film, titled "Don’t Call Me Angel," featuring Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus, and Lana Del Ray, couldn’t put viewers in theater seats.
The Hollywood Reporter extolled "Charlie’s Angels" for "unapologetically raising a feminist flag, championing female friendships and subtly making a point about the urgency of the ongoing climate crisis."
That pretty much says it all, spelling it out in big bold letters why the November, 2019 film turns out to be such a turkey.
James Hirsen, J.D., M.A., in media psychology, is a New York Times best-selling author, media analyst, and law professor. Visit Newsmax TV Hollywood.Read more reports from James Hirsen — Click Here Now.
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