“Good morning, Angels.” “Good morning, Charlie!” Whether that quote takes you back to the Charlie’s Angels movies in the early ‘00s or all the way back to the original TV series from the ‘70s, it means something to a lot of people. And now Elizabeth Banks wants to bring that feeling to a whole new generation with her Charlie’s Angels reboot.
Er, actually don’t call it a reboot. Or even a revival. According to Banks, who directed the film and wrote the script, the upcoming action film is more of a “continuation” or sequel that both builds on the events of the original TV series and two movies from the ‘00s as well as connects them all together to make one large Charlie’s Angels canon.
When the new Charlie’s Angels movie picks up, it’s been 40 years since Charlie first started the Townsend Agency with a trio of Angels. Since then he has turned it into a global spy program. There are Townsend Agencies all over the world with Angel teams everywhere.
Collider was lucky enough to witness the action on set in Berlin during production last winter to get the scoop on what longtime fans of Charlie’s Angels can expect from the new movie, from the modern updates to what Banks carried over from the originals and more.
Expanding the World
One of the biggest things that Banks wanted to maintain with her Charlie’s Angels is honoring the original legacy while bringing things into the 21st century. “We have a lot of easter eggs in the movie,” Banks told Collider along with a small group of reporters. “We really pay homage to a lot of the history of Charlie’s Angels, from costumes that we feature and props and photos.”
Producer Max Handelman explained that keeping the original show history in the timeline meant giving more context to how much the world has changed. “The agency was founded in the 1970s at a time when obviously the world and America was a different place than it is in 2018, and women were in a different place than they were in the 70s than they are 40 years later,” Handelman said. “40-plus years ago, a small detective agency was formed with three women who were all underestimated, invisible, not given the proper opportunities, and from that the agency grew to 2018, where we are today, and what has happened since.”
That means while the core DNA of the Angels is still intact, some updates come in the form of how big the world has become with Angel teams all over the globe. And with multiple Angel teams comes multiple Bosleys. Bosley used to be a character but now it’s become a rank. In the film, fans will see three Bosleys played by Sir Patrick Stewart, Djimon Hounsou … and Banks herself.
That’s right, the director is stepping in front of the camera to play a Bosley, and a pretty important one too: she’s the first Angel to rise to the rank of Bosley. That’s to represent “women evolving through the workplace, and once you’re done being an Angel you’re not just done,” Handelman said. “So her character’s graduated or been promoted to becoming Bosley.”
Making the Women More Real
Because the new Charlie’s Angels is giving context to the mythology by putting it in the same timeline as the original series and films, that meant it was time to update the Angels for modern times. According to Handelman, Banks refused to do the “obligatory training montage where the female characters get to prove to you why they’re badass.”
“They just are, in the same way that you never see Ethan Hunt train to become Ethan Hunt,” Handelman added. “He just is. You meet him climbing a rock or a skyscraper. When you first meet Jason Bourne he just is a total badass. So when you meet Kristen Stewart as Sabina in this movie, when you meet Ella Balinska as Jane, they’re just trained, badass women. We don’t have to prove to you why they are who they are. They’re just talented women who represent different archetypes of female characters.”
Taking a break in between filming a major fight scene, Stewart, Balinska and Naomi Scott, playing this movie’s main Angel trio, giddily share their excitement over how their characters are the perfect modern update to the original Angels because they’re relatable while still being badass.
“We have this whole network of women working together and supporting each other [working for] ‘good,’ which is just treating people well and being positive and self-affirming rather than having like, three superhuman women that are like sexy and perfect and fly through the air,” Stewart said. “It’s like no, it’s hard to do what we’re doing, and we’re only able to do it together.”
Plus not every Angel is some superhuman fighting machine. Scott plays Elena, who starts off the movie as a client hiring the Angels in a time of crisis (and no surprise here: eventually becomes an Angel herself). Elena works at an international tech company and makes a terrible discovery – she becomes a whistleblower trying to right a horrible wrong but isn’t taken seriously. That’s where the Angels come in.
“What’s cool for me is that the arc of my character, she becomes an Angel as well,” Scott said. “It’s the idea that anyone can be an Angel, because she may not be the most coordinated gal in the world, but she’s smart, she got brains.”
That was “very important” for Banks to include a “female character who’s in the sciences, in STEM,” according to Handelman. “And she’s entering this world of the Charlie’s Angels, spies, and she has no idea that this exists and her mind is kind of blown that this is an opportunity in a world that even exists,” he added.
It's Totally Feminist
While Banks loves that the original Charlie’s Angels series already had feminism baked into the DNA, she was excited to make this movie even more feminist than ever. For one thing, she toned down how the Angels used sex and sexuality to succeed.
“We play with that trope and then we dismiss it pretty early on in the movie,” Banks said. “The women in this film use their brains and their wits. We had a mantra which was we are going to fight smarter, not harder.”
And that’s what Stewart is most passionate about. “When was the last time you saw a movie where a group of women were sitting together and figuring out how to overcome something, how to formulate a plan and be proactive about it?” she said. “We’re destroying the patriarchy in this movie. It’s about a company that was created by well-intentioned men, and then taken over by corrupt jerk-offs. So we’re taking the company back and reinstating its mission statement.”
That also means there isn’t as heavy of a focus on romance in this movie as there had been in previous Charlie’s Angels stories. “[Banks] really wanted to focus on these characters as women who are doing their jobs and are good at their jobs and focus less on love stories,” Handelman said.
Stronger Villains = Stronger Heroes
Another, quieter way Banks is making this Charlie’s Angels more feminist is by making the male villains even stronger than ever to only further enhance just how strong the Angels are. Kingdom’s Jonathan Tucker plays a mysterious villain who goes head-to-head against the Angels in some intense action sequences, and he didn’t hold back in what he described as “dance-like” fight scenes.
“We even play like some of that old Fred Astaire when we were doing some of the choreography, and then we kind of update it more get closer to kind of modern day hip hop, but we were trying to feel like this is a dance and as two wonderful dance partners,” Tucker said. “The idea is that the stronger my character is, the better and stronger she looks because that’s a stronger adversary. The conversation is: how much stronger can we make my character look so that she ultimately comes across as the real true physical heroine?”
And fun fact: Tucker’s character doesn’t speak in the movie. And that was actually his choice.
“I wanted to kind of be a mystery and I cut all the dialogue for the character, because I really thought that’d be a lot of fun,” Tucker said. “So I don’t say anything until the very end. I think it’s a lot more fun for people to be like, ‘Who is this dude, just like showing up over and over and over again?’ It’s funny. It’s also kind of annoying. It’s also really threatening. And we don’t know much about him.”
There's a Mystery to Be Solved
While most of the film’s plot revolves around the Angels helping Scott’s character, there is a larger mystery playing in the background that hits a little closer to home for the Angels, especially at the end of the movie.
“Who is Charlie?” Handelman teased. “If we’re playing the story straight, meaning the company was born in the ‘70s, and it’s 2018, you might ask yourself, who is Charlie? How old would Charlie be today? Who’s really running this? And that’s a question that comes up over the course of the film.”
You’ve Never Seen KStew Like This
Get ready to see the former Twilight star in a whole new light. Most of the film’s comedy comes from Stewart, who plays a character described as “extremely fun, happy, high-energy and just extremely dynamic.”
“I’m literally like a puppy,” Stewart said with a laugh. “I’m like, ‘Please, please, please! Don’t you wanna be friends, don’t you wanna be friends? Can we be friends?’ We’re all totally flawed, and then, yeah, kind of complete one another.”
As for the other Angel, Balinska’s action-oriented Jane comes from MI6. “She’s very disciplined,” Handelman said. “She worked in a tightly-controlled work environment of like a formal government agency, and so her character journey is trying to let go of control and trust the team more which is in contrast to the Kristen/Sabina character [who is] wildly gorgeous [and] just does her thing and isn’t concerned about the rules.”
About Those Other Two…
There are two other big name actors in Charlie’s Angels we haven’t mentioned yet: Sam Claflin and Noah Centineo. Not much is known about their characters yet, but we do have some basic information after talking with them on set.
Claflin, who is reuniting with Banks after their time in the Hunger Games franchise together, is playing Alexander Brock, described as a Silicon Valley-type of guy – but the actor actually had no idea what that meant before joining the film.
“I have a very small knowledge of male or female people within the industry that my character is based, in this sort of tech, Silicon Valley-esque kind of world,” Claflin said with a laugh. “Like it’s so far beyond my reach. It was quite a bit of research that me and Elizabeth were both jokingly like, ‘Oh maybe he’s a bit more like Elon Musk, or maybe he’s a bit more like … ’ so it was quite fulfilling learning about that world.”
So what exactly did Claflin and Banks land on for Brock?
“He’s a child that never grew up,” Claflin said. “He’s a gamer, lives in his own head and just managed to invent this tech that has made him what he is. He’s kind of spoiled in many respects. You get the impression after a few things that he says that he didn’t have the best upbringing. But he’s a very, very intelligent and knowledgeable man.”
Brock’s the hotshot boss of the company Elena works for and is trying to bring to justice when she discovers the new tech, Calisto, can actually do more harm than good in the wrong hands. But according to Claflin, Brock has no idea just how dangerous it is.
“He’s an innocent party within this,” Claflin said. “He’s not sure of exactly what’s going on, which is why the Angels are here. Despite being a very, very intelligent man, he’s very, very stupid.”
As for Centineo, the To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before star plays Elena’s BFF Langdon who works with her in software development for Calisto.
“Langdon’s cool, man, he’s top of his class, he worked very hard to get where he is,” Centineo said. “He’s dedicated, he’s part of the intelligentsia, no doubt. But he’s also goofy, he’s ridiculous. He has this sensitive quirkiness about him.”
Langdon and Elena’s relationship is brother-sister, according to Centineo.
“He looks up to her,” he said. “They share a sense of humor and spend a lot of their nights off together. They get into some pretty tough and tricky situations and both have to find their way out of it. He gets dragged into it actually. It is an action film, and Langdon gets caught up in it a little bit.”
Charlie’s Angels hits theaters November 15th.
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