Drew Barrymore was nervous about ‘Charlie’s Angels’ opening weekend

Drew Barrymore revealed today on The Drew Barrymore Show she was worried about how her, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu’s 2000 film adaptation of Charlie’s Angels would perform at the box office. 

The actress — who played the cool, risk-taking spy Dylan Sanders in the action-comedy film — revealed on Monday’s episode of her talk show that she felt “so nervous” that she was “shaking in my pants” over how well the film would do during its opening weekend.

“It didn’t used to be this way in my job or the studio system — they did not make this big deal about opening weekends, and then it evolved into this make-or-break, weird, terrible thing,” Barrymore explained to the audience. “Like, people are not making their movies to be successful in a two-day period.” 

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The talk show host, who also produced the film via her production company Flower Films, acknowledged that she understood the film industry is still a business like any other, but noted that “we’ve destroyed a lot of the good will people are trying to do” through their storytelling by focusing solely on the numbers. 

“I just hate it, but it got really rampant when we were opening Charlie’s Angels — that was around the time when this was like, the do-or-die,” she said. “So, of course, I was shaking in my pants, and I was so nervous. And the movie opened well and people were like, ‘Aren’t you happy?’ And I was like, ‘No, I’m relieved. I’m just relieved, because if it didn’t go well we’d be in big trouble.’” 

Barrymore didn’t need to worry, though. The film, which was based on the television series of the same name, took home over $40 million during its opening weekend before going on to earn a total of $264 million at the global office. A sequel to the action-adventure film, titled Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, was later released in 2003. 

Over the years on her talk show, Barrymore has not only reunited with her Charlie’s Angels costars several times, but she’s also floated the idea of a potential threequel — going so far as to reveal that she once called her agent to see if Zoë Kravitz would be open to directing it.

“Can I just say? I don’t know what the plan is, but if there’s a Charlie’s Angels reboot, that would be my dream to direct,” Kravitz confessed last September. “Like, my dream. Those are my favorite movies — to the point where I’ve called my agent about this.”

“It’s really funny that you say that, because I called my agent too and was like, ‘Would Zoe ever consider…’” Barrymore said, to which an excited Kravitz responded, “Shut up. Shut up! Shut up!”

The Blink Twice director later added, “I can’t believe we just made a deal on television!”

The Drew Barrymore Show airs weekdays on CBS.