12 years after Charlie’s Angels first came to movie theatres, Sony is rebooting the franchise yet again. While another reboot seems tiring and uninspired, this one has potential. In September, Elizabeth Banks came on as the film’s director, and she will produce it through her production company, Brownstone. 

The movie has now found its screenwriter: Evan Spiliotopoulos. Spiliotopoulos recently wrote Hercules, which starred Dwayne Johnson. His upcoming projects include 2016’s The Huntsman Winter’s War and 2017’s Beauty and the Beast. 

Sony first rebooted Charlie’s Angels in 2000 with a mediocre film starring Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu. In 2003, they followed it up with a sequel, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. 

Charlie’s Angels was an incredibly popular ABC television show that debuted in 1976 and ran for five seasons. Starring Farrah Fawcett, Kate Jackson, and Jaclyn Smith as private detectives working for a mysterious benefactor, the show became a cultural phenomenon. As the show progressed, Cheryl Ladd replaced Fawcett. Shelley Hack and Tanya Roberts also joined the show in its last few seasons. 

Banks recognizes the cultural importance of the show’s original theme of independence and going against expectations, and may be the perfect person to direct:

The original ethos of women who graduated from the police academy, and then were given the jobs of crossing guard and meter maid, I feel like that’s still very real in the world right now.

Banks recently directed Pitch Perfect 2, the amazing sequel to the 2012 sleeper hit. Her directorial debut was primarily met with praise, with Deadline saying that she “savvily knows how to milk everyone else’s comic moments without going over the top”. This bodes well for Charlie’s Angels, which could so easily lose its comedic effect by becoming too over the top. 

No further information, such as an anticipated release date, has been released.