Against all odds, Charlie's Angels flopped at the box office.

But it did all the right things: It capitalized on an existing franchise, it got soccer star and Glamour "Woman of the Year" Megan Rapinoe to appear in a promo spot, and it embodied the timely and supposedly lucrative aura of female empowerment. It even included two ethnically ambiguous leads and one who is sexually fluid. What went wrong?

The film gathered a meager $8.6 million domestic opening despite its budget of $48 million, proving that box office glory isn't a simple formula in which woke-plus-reboot equals more cash.

The restyling of the 2000 film starring Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu scrapped star power for little-known actresses Naomi Scott and Ella Balinska alongside Kristen Stewart, the Twilight star who identifies as bisexual and has become a favorite among liberal and indie-film loving crowds.

“At one point I think we said it was woke and grounded, and everyone was like, ‘Wait, is it still fun?’” Stewart told Variety of the film. “And I’m like, ‘Yeah dude, obviously, it’s Charlie’s Angels.”

But apparently, not all Charlie's Angels are created equal. One writer at Slate confirmed what moviegoers likely feared: "The reboot is so concerned with its messaging that it fails to be fun."

Before the film's financial failure confirmed that audiences aren't dumb enough to fall for Hollywood's latest woke capitalist trick, director Elizabeth Banks preempted her impending professional failure by warning that the film might not be as successful as it surely deserves to be, not because it's bad, but because of sexism.

“Look, people have to buy tickets to this movie, too. This movie has to make money,” she told the Herald Sun.

They have to? Last I heard, shelling out cash at the movie theater was not a philanthropic enterprise. Why has it suddenly taken on moral weight?

“If this movie doesn’t make money, it reinforces a stereotype in Hollywood that men don’t go see women do action movies,” Banks explained.

And the inconvenient success of other female-led action films? After Wonder Woman came out in 2017, it became the highest-grossing superhero origin film. Banks tried and failed to explain that away.

“So even though those are movies about women, they put them in the context of feeding the larger comic book world, so it’s all about, yes, you’re watching a Wonder Woman movie but we’re setting up three other characters or we’re setting up Justice League,” she said.

More women deserve box office success, Banks added, because “we need more women’s voices supported with money because that’s the power. The power is in the money.”

Wonder Woman made money because it was a great film that happened to have a female lead. It didn't make the Amazonian princess a mouthpiece for a cash grab thinly veiled with liberalism.

Banks could have learned this lesson from Olivia Wilde, whose directorial debut Booksmart also flailed in theaters.

“Anyone out there saving @Booksmart for another day, consider making that day TODAY,” Wilde desperately tweeted days after the film came out. “We are getting creamed by the big dogs out there and need your support. Don’t give studios an excuse not to green-light movies made by and about women.”

It's hard to blame sexism when moviegoers don't show up for a film that has been heavily marketed as a politically correct reboot of an already popular film, such as Superbad, which Wilde reimagined in Booksmart with two female leads.

Moviegoers aren't interested in supporting women in the arts just for the sake of doing so. They want to support women in the arts who create movies that are unique, compelling, or at the very least, fun. If female artists want to be real trailblazers, they should stop pretending that we have an obligation to support them just for having the "right" ideologies.

Captain Marvel and Us, both with female leads, are among the highest-grossing movies of the year. It's not that audiences don't want to see strong women in film. They just don't care for moviemakers lecturing them about women's empowerment. Go figure.