Definitive proof that female-driven movies kill at the box office
Hollywood has been telling us lies for too long. Not the “Dinosaurs and aliens exist, let Stephen Spielberg show you how for an hour and a half,” kind of lies; we LOVE those lies. No, we’re talking about the lies they’ve been telling us for YEARS when it comes to female-driven movies. If a lady-centric movie does well, it a “fluke,” and if it flops, well, Hollywood gives us major side-eye and tells us under its breath, “What did you expect? Movies about women don’t make money.”
Well, if Hollywood wants to continue to be sexist (please DON’T, Hollywood), it’s going to have to stop using money as an excuse. As Mic reports, 6 out of the 10 top films of 2015 (as of this writing) have a female lead (Mad Max: Fury Road, Inside Out, Pitch Perfect 2, Cinderella, Fifty Shades of Grey and Home). This is a MAJOR improvement upon the last few years. Though 2012 featured four women-led films in the top 10 ( The Hunger Games, Snow White and the Huntsman, Brave and The Vow), things took a dip in 2013 when there was only one top 10 movie about a woman (Identity Thief) and only two in 2014 (Divergent and Maleficent).
As it turns out, the more top-grossing female-led movies there are in a year, the better that year does, total box-office gross-wise. Check out this chart from Mic:
As we can see, with four top-grossing women-led films, 2012 did MUCH better than 2013 and 2014, and 2015, which boasts the most top-grossing films with female leads, is totally kicking the butts of the previous few years.
Of course, this is just looking at a sample of four years, and the sucky truth is, Hollywood has only recently started to make big female-led movies with any kind of regularity, so we’re going to have to give this trend a little more time before we’re allowed to label it a straight-up phenomenon. That said, this is REALLY good news that REALLY deserves to be celebrated. Not only are all these lady films busting into the top 10, but this preliminary data shows that more lady-led films trends along with a better box office year for the entire film industry. To paraphrase an old saying, a rising lady-movie-tide lifts all movie-ships.
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