The news over the past couple of weeks related to the reboot of Charlie’s Angels has mostly been related to it bombing at the box office. Luckily, director Elizabeth Banks can now look forward to new things, as she has landed her big Charlie’s Angels directorial follow-up. Interestingly, it’s in the new monster-based universe Universal is trying to build.
News broke this week that Elizabeth Banks will be tackling Invisible Woman, an original flick based on the titular character, who appeared in the 1940 movie of the same name. Erin Cressida Wilson will write the script and Banks will direct and star in the movie.
The original movie was more of an oddball comedy, and it was created after Invisible Man and its sequel The Invisible Man Returns did well in theaters. Interestingly, Elizabeth Banks’ Invisible Woman property has been announced after Universal is already doing a new take on the aforementioned Invisible Man classic.
The new iteration of The Invisible Man will star Elisabeth Moss and Oliver Jackson-Cohen and Aldis Hodge and will be a thriller. In fact, if you’ve seen the first trailer for the upcoming Blumhouse flick, you should know what to expect.
According to THR, the tone of The Invisible Woman will be a bit different. That outlet describes the upcoming Elizabeth Banks flick as “Thelma & Louise meets American Psycho.”
Just a couple of years ago, when we would talk about Universal’s monster movie properties, we were calling it the Dark Universe. The studio spent a lot of time and effort hiring major actors to kick off a whole universe property. Then the first movie in the franchise, Tom Cruise’s The Mummy, failed in spectacular fashion in 2017 and the Dark Universe concept was shuttered.
But only temporarily. Now, Universal has studio and director-driven projects coming from a slew of different names. The Invisible Man is coming from Insidious 3 director Leigh Whannell and Blumhouse. Rocketman director Dexter Fletcher has his own Dracula movie called Renfield in the works. Paul Feig is doing a Universal monster movie called Dark Army.
As for Elizabeth Banks, the longtime actress only has two major directorial projects under her belt. There’s Pitch Perfect 2, which made a lot of money, and Charlie’s Angels, which won’t. Maybe this third time will be the charm that puts her skill sets in front of a bunch of theatergoers again.
In the meantime, the director has had a self-deprecating humor related to how her latest Charlie’s Angels has fared and should be looking to the future with The Invisible Woman. Plus , although this Universal monster movie has no date yet, Elizabeth Banks will be keeping busy with her acting career and will next star in the TV series Mrs. America.
