2016 was a history-making year at the North American box office. Variety reports that ticket sales last year amounted to $11.4 billion — a new record for the industry, surpassing 2015’s $11.1 billion. But how much of this year’s box office success can be claimed by women directors?
ComScore, a data measurement company, calculated the box office figures. Some folks will be surprised by their findings — 2016, did, after all, include a number of high-profile flops, such as “Gods of Egypt,” “Ben-Hur,” and “The BFG.” Sales were bolstered “thanks to more expensive tickets,” Deadline rightly notes. “Ticket prices hit new highs earlier in 2016, though an average full-year price for tickets have yet to be calculated.” ComScore hasn’t taken inflation into account, so that’s also something worth considering.
What we’re most interested in is how much of an impact women-directed films had on 2016’s historical high at the North American box office. To get some idea of how much of that $11.1 billion was generated from female-helmed films, we added up the grosses of all of the films directed and co-directed by women that cracked the top 250 at the domestic box office. There are only 22 of them. These films made a combined total of $387,359,931, amounting to about three percent of $11.1 billion.
Our method is admittedly imperfect. There are, of course, many women-directed films that contributed to that $11.1 billion that didn’t land on the top 250 list, but we wanted to get an impression of how much of a mark the biggest hits helmed by women made. We used numbers retrieved from Box Office Mojo yesterday, January 5, in our calculations, so a few of the films have added to their grosses since the end of 2016 (but just barely).
This is a painful reminder of how far we have to go. Don’t mistake the problem. It’s not that women-directed films don’t make money. They do make money. The problem is that exceedingly few big-budget, high-profile movies are directed by women. Women aren’t getting hired for these jobs. Consider which directors are being offered franchise films — the projects that fare best at the box office. They are overwhelmingly men. In order for women to make a significant impact on the box office they need tor be given equal opportunities.
Check out the highest grossing women-directed films of 2016 (as of yesterday) below. “Kung Fu Panda 2,” co-directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson, is the top-earning female-helmed movie of the year. The animated feature earned over $143 million. Patricia Riggen’s faith-based “Miracles from Heaven” made the biggest dent of the live-action films helmed by women, taking home more than $61 million.
18. “Kung Fu Panda 3” — Co-Directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson: $143,528,619
50. “Miracles from Heaven” — Directed by Patricia Riggen: $61,705,123
54. “Me Before You” — Directed by Thea Sharrock: $56,245,075
69. “Money Monster” — Directed by Jodie Foster: $41,012,075
95. “Bridget Jones’s Baby” — Directed by Sharon Maguire: $24,139,805
118. “The Edge of Seventeen”— Directed by Kelly Fremon Craig: $14,421,194
135. “Queen of Katwe” — Directed by Mira Nair: $8,868,592
139. “A Beautiful Planet” (Documentary) — Directed by Toni Myers: $7,895,708
152. “Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie” — Directed by Mandie Fletcher: $4,761,241
155. “The Meddler” — Directed by Lorene Scafaria: $4,267,218
171. “Maggie’s Plan” — Directed by Rebecca Miller: $3,351,735
176. “Our Kind of Traitor” — Directed by Susanna White: $3,153,157
181. 2016 Oscar Nominated Short Films — Co-Directed by Serena Armitaget: $2,816,816
195. “The Dressmaker” — Directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse: $2,020,516
206. “Weiner” (Documentary) — Co-Directed by Elyse Steinberg : $1,676,108
208. “Equity” — Directed by Meera Menon: $1,605,463
226. “Certain Women” — Directed by Kelly Reichardt: $1,068,054
227. “The Innocents”- Directed by Anne Fontaine: $1,065,665
228. “Elvis & Nixon” — Directed by Lisa Johnson: $1,055,287
231. “Baar Baar Dekho” — Directed by Nitya Mehra: $981,947
232. “Dark Horse” (Documentary) — Directed by Louise Osmond: $940,715
242. “Chongqing Hot Pot” — Directed by Yang Qing: $779,818
