According to director Elizabeth Banks, her film The Invisible Woman has been superseded by a sequel to The Invisible Man and put on hold.
Elizabeth Banks may soon have a chance to make a sequel to Cocaine Bear, last year’s action comedy about a raging grizzly high on class A drugs. While that will come as welcome news to fans of the first film, a different Elizabeth Banks project appears to be no more.
The filmmaker popped up in an interview at Comicbook.com where she was asked about the status of her take on The Invisible Woman, a project commissioned in 2019. Banks was set to star in and direct Invisible Woman for Universal, and it was a project she pitched to the studio. Eric Cressida Wilson, who penned The Girl On The Train, was recruited to write the script.
The movie was set to follow Leigh Whannell’s take on The Invisible Man, which Universal launched into cinemas to good reviews just as the pandemic hit in 2020. Whether the two films were linked in some way, we don’t know. Outside of Banks taking the lead role, there was never any more casting announced.
Read more: The Invisible Man review | A far better way forward for the Dark Universe
It’s possible that the muted performance of Banks’ previous film, Charlie’s Angels, hurt the momentum of The Invisible Woman. There was also a global pandemic and a year of Hollywood strikes to contend with, both of which could have also affected the film’s chances. Banks herself was also working on other projects such as Cocaine Bear, which could have also affected the project’s fate. The success of Whannell’s The Invisible Man also led to a sequel being announced in April 2024 that may well explore similar ideas.
There are several factors that could have led to the project being shelved, then, although with any Hollywood studio, there’s always the chance that The Invisible Woman could be revived at some point, especially if Banks’ sequel to Cocaine Bear proves to be a money-spinner. There are still plenty of other versions of The Invisible Woman out there to enjoy though, spanning decades including the 1940s, the 80s and more. As for a fresh take? We may be waiting a while longer on that front.
