Actress Elizabeth Banks made her directorial debut with the 2015 comedy musical Pitch Perfect 2; now, for her follow-up she’s diving into the action realm with Charlie’s Angels. The reboot of the feature film property, which itself was adapted from a 1970s TV series, stars Banks as well as Naomi Scott, Kristen Stewart and Ella Balinska as the titular angels. It doesn’t hit theaters until November, but we now know how much Charlie’s Angels might make during opening weekend.
Charlie’s Angels opens in theaters on November 15, and the long-range forecast pegs the reboot to have an opening weekend between $25-$35 million, with closer predictions at a $29 million debut. This is of course long-range tracking, and with another month and a half and a whole marketing push to go, Charlie’s Angels could ultimately wind up on either side of that number, because as we’ve seen many times, box office tracking is an inexact science.
The last time Charlie’s Angels were on the big screen was 2003, and it’s been nearly two decades since the 2000 Charlie’s Angels starring Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu and Drew Barrymore, so it’s difficult to know how much insight can be gleaned by comparing their opening weekends to the tracking for the new film. But for what it’s worth, the 2000 Charlie’s Angels, from director McG (which was also a November release), opened to $40.1 million. Later, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle opened in June of 2003 to $37.6 million.
So, if you don’t account for inflation, this new Charlie’s Angels seems poised to open below the marks of its predecessors, but in the same basic vicinity. While those two debuts might not seem spectacular in this day and age of $100+ million openings, those two films were overall domestic hits, with the first movie making $125.3 million and the sequel earning $100.8 million.
Although Lucy Liu, Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz aren’t returning for Elizabeth Banks’ film, she has assembled a new cast that could really appeal to audiences, especially the young female audience that may or may not be familiar with the earlier films. Kristen Stewart is popular thanks to her work in the Twilight series and actress Naomi Scott made a splash earlier this year as Jasmine in Disney’s hugely successful Aladdin.
The tie-in song for the movie, “Don’t Call Me Angel” from Lana Del Rey, Ariana Grande and Miley Cyrus, received a positive social media reception and could also help with the visibility of the film and its marketing campaign.
Possibly working against Charlie’s Angels at the box office is the fact that we don’t know what the demand and interest is among general audiences for a reboot of this property. Sony tried rebooting Men in Black earlier this year with Men in Black International and that film was a dud domestically. Now, the studio will try another reboot of a different property with what it hopes will be a better result.
Do young and adult female audiences care about Charlie’s Angels? If not, can the film and early trailers convince them to care? So far, the advance ticket sales aren’t especially promising, but once again, it’s still early and good reviews and positive buzz could go a long way.
On the competition front, Charlie’s Angels opens opposite The Good Liar and Ford v Ferrari. Tracking isn’t in on the former, but James Mangold’s racing drama is also tracking to open between $25-$35 million. Box Office Pro is actually predicting it will win the race against the angels with a $32 million opening weekend.
Charlie’s Angels opens on November 15. Check out our 2019 release schedule to keep track of all this fall’s biggest movies.
