If female lead movies make more money, why don't we see more of them?

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  • If female lead movies make more money, why don't we see more of them?

    From The Black List blog:

    "It seems both in practice and belief that producers and executives are hesitant to place resources in female-driven movies. By the numbers there are fewer female-led movies and even fewer big-budget, female-led movies.

    The rationalization always seems to be that women will see male-dominated movies, but men won't see female-dominated movies. But is this true? Are you smarter to greenlight male-dominated movies over female? What do the numbers tell us?

    ...

    If we're talking numbers strictly-and I'm sure producers often cite "numbers- to push male-driven movies through-well, the data actually says we minimize downside risk and increase upside potential when making female-driven movies."


    - See more at: http://blog.blcklst.com/2015/02/edgi....LsEeYYIl.dpuf

    Do you agree with this analysis?

    If it's right, why don't we see more female-lead movies?
    "People who work in Hollywood are the ones who didn't quit." -- Lawrence Kasdan

    Please visit my website and blog: www.lauridonahue.com.

  • #2
    Re: If female lead movies make more money, why don't we see more of them?

    I think we will see more eventually but it takes such a long time for Hollywood -- indeed, the industry -- to catch on to these type of shifts.

    If you listened to the Spellman Scriptnotes podcast (which I guess you did since you posted a comment on it), you can appreciate how long it's taking for African-American content to be considered safely mainstream and viable -- and note it's "taking" not "has taken" because we're still not there. Same is sure to hold true for women.

    But I for one am confident change will happen. It's just got to.
    Last edited by muckraker; 03-01-2015, 09:05 AM. Reason: grammar

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    • #3
      Re: If female lead movies make more money, why don't we see more of them?

      I've heard a ton of people say this, so forgive me if it's been said to death already... Successful films lead by women are always - ALWAYS - seen as outliers. There is always an excuse for success, including, but not limited to:

      -Well, Angelina Jolie/Jennifer Lawrence/Julia Roberts is in it!
      -It's based on a popular existing franchise!
      -Musicals/other IPs have followings besides the movie going audience!
      -It has romance/sex/soft core, and people will see any movie with that!

      And on and on. And on.

      There's never been- not that I can remember anyway- more than one or two films with female leads that have been crazy-successful in wide release at the same time. It may seem like a ton of criteria to meet, but a dozen male-lead films can meet that same criteria every single week.

      So, male leads will always seem like the safer bet, until one massive wave of change comes in all at once. Trust me, I want this change as much as everyone else does!

      Maybe we could start with biopics about some awesome ladies instead of "Special British Snowflakes" (thank you, John August) who all happen to be men? More action films couldn't hurt (even ones without Angelina Jolie), more thrillers, different comedies, male/female two-handers. Anything!

      I think we'll really make actual progress when we see a wildly successful film with a female lead where the writer doesn't say "You know, I originally wrote that part for a dude..."

      So, ultimately, I'd say it's up to us.

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      • #4
        Re: If female lead movies make more money, why don't we see more of them?

        I don't have an answer, but thanks to LauriD for posting. This kind of analysis and its publication will hopefully contribute to changing this over the long-term.

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: If female lead movies make more money, why don't we see more of them?

          From The Black List blog:

          "It seems both in practice and belief that producers and executives are hesitant to place resources in female-driven movies. By the numbers there are fewer female-led movies and even fewer big-budget, female-led movies. "

          I'll see a quality movie with anyone in it. However, as a woman, i can say it is also casting that counts. I think one movie that got it right was Bridesmaids. They put funny women in a great script. Too often they dump the women they think men want to see in these movies (Heigl/Hudson/etc.). I'm sure they would do the same with an action movie. I like Meg Ryan but i still cringe when i think of her lame push up in Courage Under Fire. She was in the military, at least do one push up correctly. So much more to a film than who is leading it for me. Quality first. Part of the bigger picture is money...how many female producers are there? how many are putting their money into films with women? I work in the finance industry and in five years i can count on one hand the # of women who have come in these doors.

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          • #6
            Re: If female lead movies make more money, why don't we see more of them?

            I did a very brief skim of their metrics, and there are two huge (fundamental) flaws in using this data to suggest that if you put more women in your film, you guarantee a higher ROI.

            - Female-led films are almost invariably (as even the data suggests) lower-budgeted than male-led films. Low-budget films naturally have a much better chance of achieving a 1.00 ROI.

            - Horror films, which make up the vast majority of high-ROI films (see any film produced by Blumhouse), are often led by female-centric casts. That's why "scream queens" are a thing. ROI data suggests horror films are a much safer bet than almost any other genre - particularly because the low budget threshold means that there are fewer outright losses (less than 1.00 ROI), even if the films don't resonate. ROI data also suggests that by and large R-rated films are a much safer profitable bet than any other rating. The reason for this is a catch 22: because an R rating limits the marketing reach, and audience, producers know they have to keep budgets low, which in turn leads to a better chance of a 1.00 ROI.

            I'd have to take a closer look at the underlying source data, but they even admit that when the budgets cross over $30m, there's little difference in profitability between gender. That suggests that the real "secret" here is that low-budget films have a better chance of making a profit. That's not even a secret.

            I'm all for making female-led films, I'm just not one for twisting data to support a cause, even if I believe in the cause.

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            • #7
              Re: If female lead movies make more money, why don't we see more of them?

              Most of these female-lead movies that are making bank are really making bank because the IP is popular, not necessarily because a female is in the lead. Think TWILIGHT, DIVERGENT, HUNGER GAMES, etc. Same could be said for Harry Potter, which outperformed them all.

              Female-driven spec fare is still risky, because of historical data (before this latest IP boom of the last ten to fifteen years, female led-moves — especially action flicks, which is primarily what studios are turning out nowadays — historically underperformed compared to male-driven action movies). There are some exceptions, like LUCY (which was internally generated by Besson and financed with Euro money, only distro'd by a studio)... but your chances of selling an original female-driven action spec naked without a strong attachment are probably needle-in-a-haystack, optimistically.

              So, my advice: Create strong female-driven IP.

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              • #8
                Re: If female lead movies make more money, why don't we see more of them?

                Yes, but.... WHY are they primarily turning out action movies? I don't like them. A lot of women don't, including many of us who are always looking for a good movie to see. I know men who don't like actioners, too, and that's going to be a significant portion of the public in every nation in the world. They're doing this because of their suppositions that THIS is what works for an international audience. This is the only thing. But what else works for an international audience that isn't getting made, that no one has ever had a chance to see? Why aren't many original family friendly live action comedies being made anymore? Why did they stop making teen comedies like they used to? There are still always teens everywhere, teens and women who want to see their lives and interests, hopes and dreams represented, without watching a large number of gory deaths.

                What about all the good spec scripts that are different, that never had a chance to be made because they were different, and because a like-minded group of decision-makers look at the statistics for the kind of female films they did allow to be made, some of which women loved and supported -- which they consider outliers -- and some of which were men's ideas of what women should have loved but didn't. Women are still an under-served, under-understood and under-represented community in film at the decision-making level, at the level of deciding what kind of things would work for an international audience that are NOT being done now. you can only look at the statistics of what has allowed to be made, not the scripts that have been rejected that would have been embraced, but there's no way to prove that because they weren't made.


                Originally posted by ihavebiglips View Post
                Most of these female-lead movies that are making bank are really making bank because the IP is popular, not necessarily because a female is in the lead. Think TWILIGHT, DIVERGENT, HUNGER GAMES, etc. Same could be said for Harry Potter, which outperformed them all.

                Female-driven spec fare is still risky, because of historical data (before this latest IP boom of the last ten to fifteen years, female led-moves - especially action flicks, which is primarily what studios are turning out nowadays - historically underperformed compared to male-driven action movies). There are some exceptions, like LUCY (which was internally generated by Besson and financed with Euro money, only distro'd by a studio)... but your chances of selling an original female-driven action spec naked without a strong attachment are probably needle-in-a-haystack, optimistically.

                So, my advice: Create strong female-driven IP.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: If female lead movies make more money, why don't we see more of them?

                  Originally posted by Joaneasley View Post
                  Why aren't many original family friendly live action comedies being made anymore? Why did they stop making teen comedies like they used to? There are still always teens everywhere
                  This is perhaps the most puzzling one of all...

                  Within a span of about 35 months in the mid-80's, we got The Flamingo Kid, Footloose, Gremlins, The Karate Kid, The Last Starfighter, Red Dawn, 16 Candles, Ferris Buellers Day Off, Lucas, One Crazy Summer, Pretty In Pink, Space Camp, Better Off Dead, Breakfast Club, The Explorers, The Goonies, Legend Of Billie Jean, Real Genius, War Games, Seven Minutes In Heaven, The Sure Thing, Teen Wolf, Weird Science, and The Young Sherlock Holmes.

                  And that's just the PG movies.

                  There were tons of R rated pics for older kids like Fast Times, Revenge Of The Nerds, Porky's, Last American Virgin, Valley Girl, Class, etc., as well as hundreds of classic 80's horror movies.

                  It's not like these films just dropped in popularity a bit, they simply disappeared.

                  Crazy.



                  Edited to add: Technically, Breakfast Club was R, but only because it had 2 or 3 instances of the F word, which could have been easily cut, but weren't, which is pretty cool.
                  Last edited by kintnerboy; 03-03-2015, 06:53 AM.

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                  • #10
                    Re: If female lead movies make more money, why don't we see more of them?

                    It's not that simple. Virtually every studio has a few female driven films in development, especially after LUCY did so well last year. I mean, they are remaking GHOST BUSTERS with all female cast... So yes, studios are thinking about it very much. But it all comes down to casting. There are very few actresses who can open a film that's not based on pre-existing material, so if there isn't DIVERGENT or TWILIGHT or FAULT IN OUR STARS or <insert a Nicholas Sparks title> involved, it gets tricky. And there are only so many films Scarlett Johansen or Jennifer Lawrence can do a year... If their schedule is full, the film dies.

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                    • #11
                      Re: If female lead movies make more money, why don't we see more of them?

                      Originally posted by ihavebiglips View Post

                      ... So, my advice: Create strong female-driven IP.
                      This is where I'm leaning, now. I'm adapting my female-lead scripts to prose fiction -- novella length -- for e-book self-pub. Of course, my problem is, when wearing my literature hat, I get anal about the quality of my prose. So the going is s-l-o-o-o-w. (I'm working on a marketing plan for branded electronically delivered fiction "content" featuring female leads and male-female co leads.)

                      As a freelancer for other types of writing, I hated the word "content" for a long time. It offended my writerly sensibilities. But I'm over it. We're living in an electronic world. We need to embrace the fact that we are quickly becoming creators of internet content. (The operative word being creators.) And, when you think about it, it's a powerful place to be.

                      Your readers don't have to go to a bookstore or a library to enter the worlds you've created. They can read you anywhere, at any time, where internet access is available. If you're good, if you can find a loyal online audience, Hollywood will come after you.
                      Advice from writer, Kelly Sue DeConnick. "Try this: if you can replace your female character with a sexy lamp and the story still basically works, maybe you need another draft.-

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                      • #12
                        Re: If female lead movies make more money, why don't we see more of them?

                        We all know that TV took off in directions that film should have but didn't. I don't think anyone will argue with the fact that there are lots of amazing female characters and female-driven shows on TV.

                        That's great for viewers and actresses and a bunch of other peeps, but for people who have worked hard for years learning how to craft a tight, 90-minute spec, and who now realize that, wait, what you really gotta learn is to...what? Come up with a "bible" and 10 episodes? That's an entirely different craft.

                        I say "female" because it's in keeping with the thread, but obviously there are other types of content that are now more TV than film.

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