50 Years Later, the Best Spy Series of the 1970s Gets Another Movie Reboot

Good morning, Angels. 1970s TV staple Charlie’s Angels is headed for the big screen yet again. Sony Pictures has the latest incarnation of the female empowering and/or objectifying action series in the works, having used the formula for three feature films and two TV series to date.

According to reports, screenwriter Pete Chiarelli is developing the film for Sony. He kicked off his screenwriting career with the Sandra Bullock–Ryan Reynolds romantic comedy The Proposal, and went on to pen Now You See Me 2 and the smash hit Crazy Rich Asians. His latest project, the animated sports comedy GOAT, is slated to hit theaters this weekend. There’s no indication of whether this film will be at all connected to the two popular McG-helmed films of the early 2000s, or the less-successful 2019 reboot of the franchise, or if it will be a totally clean break.

What Is ‘Charlie’s Angels’ About?

Created by super-producer Aaron Spelling, Charlie’s Angels centered around a trio of female private investigators (initially played by Farrah Fawcett, Kate Jackson, and Jaclyn Smith, although the series would experience a significant amount of cast turnover) who worked at an agency run by Charlie Townsend. The never-seen Charlie only communicated with them via speaker; he was voiced by John Forsythe. His intermediary to his employees was a man named John Bosley (David Doyle). The series was a hit, although critics dismissed it as “jiggle television,” and ran for five seasons. Director McG revived it on the big screen in 2000, with Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu, and Cameron Diaz; the results were box-office dynamite, as it grossed $264 million USD on a $93 million budget. It was followed up with a sequel, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle pitting the Angels against renegade ex-Angel Demi Moore; it, too, made over $250 million. However, subsequent revivals of the franchise have not fared as well. An attempted 2011 TV revival on ABC from the creators of Smallville was cancelled after 11 episodes, and a 2019 film directed by Elizabeth Banks and starring Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, and Ella Balinska grossed a paltry $73 million on a $55 million budget.

This isn’t the only project in the works derived from Charlie’s Angels. In 2024, Sony announced that it is developing a new tween-aimed series based on the property and set in Brazil, although further details on that series have yet to materialize.

A new Charlie’s Angels feature film is in development. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.