Elizabeth Banks

Elizabeth Banks may not be directing Pitch Perfect 3, but she is tackling another female-centric franchise with a big screen reboot of Charlie’s Angels. Unlike previous iterations of the iconic characters, Banks’ version has something a little extra: Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Auburn, who has been tasked with making sure we take these women a little more seriously this time.

If you take a look at the official Power Rangers photos released by Lionsgate to this point, it’s easy to see the pattern they have in mind. First came a group shot of the cast out of costume, then came a group shot of the cast in costume. This past week, Lionsgate released individual character posters on its Instagram channel for each of the new cast members, as well as a new photo of Elizabeth Banks in her Rita Repulsa get-up. I’m not a betting man, but if this pattern holds, I’d keep an eye out for some individualized photos of the Power Rangers costumes before too long

Elizabeth Banks’ time directing the Pitch Perfect franchise is aca-over. She will not have Pitch Perfect 3 on her director’s film-aca-phy. She’ll instead divert her energy into other pr-aca-jects.

Just in case you weren’t sure, this is just your regular reminder that the live-action Power Rangers movie is not a prolonged April Fools joke and is actually something that is happening. For real. While we’ve heard a lot of talk about the movie, today we have our first photo from the film with Elizabeth Banks as the villainous Rita Repulsa...

Like Ben Affleck, Elizabeth Banks is proving that just because you’re a successful director, doesn’t mean you can’t take on the occasional silly role in a superhero movie. Affleck went from winning an Oscar to Batman vs. Superman and now Banks is going from Pitch Perfect 2 to the live-action Power Rangers movie, where she’ll star as the villainous Rita Repulsa.

Among the many lessons of Entourage (that partying is awesome; that everything sort of miraculously works out when you are rich and good-looking; that showbiz is a twisted game dominated by the loudest bloviators) is that nugget that there’s no quicker path to continued success in Hollywood than sticking with a winning creative team...

It’s easy to get excited about another big screen reboot of Charlie’s Angels when you have actress, director and certifiable awesome person Elizabeth Banks behind the camera. Whatever is about to happen with this movie, we’re ready — but that’s the thing: aside from Banks directing the film based on the classic ‘70s series, we don’t really know anything else about it. The writer Sony just tapped to write the screenplay for the reboot may give us a clue.

Whenever the women of SNL get to together make a music video, it tends to be the highlight of the show. The show’s female line-up is the strongest it has been in years (dare we say ever?) and their fearlessness is only matched by their comedy chops. Nothing is off limits and they‘re not afraid to embrace their femininity in ways that feels honest, insightful, and occasionally deeply weird. Like this sketch, which finds Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant, Cecily Strong, Vanessa Bayer, and guest host Elizabeth Banks singing all about the men who first turned them on when they were young girls.

Boy, we sure could use a good SNL episode following last week’s Donald Trump disaster. Thank goodness Elizabeth Banks made her hosting debut this weekend, bringing her seemingly effortless charisma and lovability to the stage to scrub last week from our memory and deliver one of the most consistently solid episodes of the season. Read on for our ranking of this week’s sketches from best to worst (spoiler: nothing was actually bad this week!).

We’re all a bit relieved to have the absurdity of Donald Trump’s SNL hosting gig behind us, and the odds are ever in our favor with Elizabeth Banks’ hosting debut. The Hunger Games star forms an alliance with Kenan Thompson for her first SNL promo, and only one of them leaves alive.