Elizabeth Banks urges studios to 'trust' female directors

Elizabeth Banks hopes her 'Charlie's Angels' movie convinces film studios to "trust" more female directors.

Banks has helmed the reboot of the female crime-fighting franchise, with Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott and Ella Balinska playing the Angels, and she hopes the movie is a major success at the box office, not just for her, but also to show what women can do behind the camera.

In an interview with Variety, she said: "The main thing I want is to convince executives that they can trust women. If I deliver a good movie with this amazing cast, we made something really fun that people really want to see, I just hope I can convince more executives to trust us - just trust women with the job."

Banks, 45, hopes audiences who see the action movie love it and gets the chance to continue the franchise with a sequel.

She said: "It's always a good time to have a female-fronted action franchise out there. It's never a bad time for that. I want people to leave just feeling super hopeful about the sh***y world we're living in."

'Twilight' star Kristen, 29, acknowledged that working with a female director is rare and believes that Banks had to work harder than her male counterparts.

She said: "I've never made a big movie where the boss was allowed to be a girl. It was weird, and it was so cool. I could see the way that she had to traverse this world a little differently in order to be heard. I could see there were times where, naturally, it's harder to hear a woman be assertive. She had to really understand communication, and she's really good at that.

"I have to say though, it is remarkable. On a smaller movie? Sure. But on a big-budget huge movie that really aspires to be a franchise, not normal. So that fact that she kick-started this and made it happen and everyone trusted her, including the studio, it's wild. It's really special."