Charlie's Angels found great success on television in the 1970s and 1980s, and the iconic trio was finally brought to the big screen in 2000 with Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu.
It was a box office hit, grossing $264.1 million worldwide (today, that would be roughly $493 million), and a sequel followed three years later, titled Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. After spending the better part of a decade on the shelf, the franchise then returned to television in 2011 before being cancelled after only 7 episodes.
Elizabeth Banks took a crack at Charlie's Angels with another reboot in 2019. That time, Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, and Ella Balinska stepped into the spotlight but failed to resonate with audiences and flopped at the box office.
According to The Hollywood Reporter (via ActioNewz.com), Sony is reviving the Charlie's Angels franchise, tapping Pete Chiarelli, who is best known for penning The Proposal and Crazy Rich Asians, to write the screenplay.
The trade notes, "It is unclear who is producing the new version, although one source said Drew Barrymore and her Flower Films banner, which was responsible for the first big-screen takes at the turn of the century, are back for this new version."
Chiarelli's other credits include Now You See Me 2 and Sony Pictures Animation's GOAT.
As noted, Charlie's Angels opened in 2019 to mostly mixed reviews, underperforming at the box office before being largely forgotten in the months that followed. With an $8 million opening weekend, the movie would go on to gross a mere $73 million globally on a reported budget of around $50 million.
"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," Banks said in 2022. "It was very stressful, partly because when women do things in Hollywood it becomes this story. There was a story around 'Charlie’s Angels' that I was creating some feminist manifesto. I was just making an action movie."
"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," the filmmaker continues. "I wish that 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."
Are you looking forward to a new Charlie's Angels movie?