Pixar’s brilliant “Inside Out” opened at #2 this weekend with a $91 million domestic (and $132 million worldwide) haul at the box office.
But the big story isn’t that “Inside Out” is Pixar’s second-biggest launch ever, but that six of the top 10 films this weekend feature female protagonists. The notable thing about those six films — “Inside Out,” “Spy,” “Insidious Chapter 3,” “Pitch Perfect 2,” “Mad Max: Fury Road” and “Tomorrowland” — is how diverse in genre they are, ranging from animation to R-rated comedy, horror to face-melting action. (Unfortunately, they’re a lot less diverse in terms of demographic representation.)
Of these six films, only one has a predominantly female creative team behind it — director Elizabeth Banks and screenwriter Kay Cannon of “Pitch Perfect 2” — while “Inside Out” boasts a co-writer in Meg LeFauve. While we cross our fingers for more women behind the scenes, let’s hope the number-crunchers at the studios are finally getting the message that female-driven box-office successes are not flukes.
Here are the stats for the six girl- or women-led top 10 movies of the weekend:
2. Inside Out (Buena Vista) — $91,056,000 in 3,946 theaters; Cumulative: $91,056,000
3. Spy (20th Century Fox) — $10,500,000 (-33%) in 3,558 theaters (-157); Cumulative: $74,374,000
6. Insidious Chapter 3 (Focus) — $4,110,000 (-44%) in 2,553 theaters (-461); Cumulative: $45,370,000
7. Pitch Perfect 2 (Universal) — $3,300,000 (-48%) in 2,146 theaters (-531); Cumulative: $177,500,000
8. Mad Max: Fury Road (Warner Bros.) — $2,815,000 (-31%) in 1,424 theaters (-810); Cumulative: $143,602,000
10. Tomorrowland (Buena Vista) — $2,009,000 (-42%) in 1,764 theaters (-776); Cumulative: $87,696,000
[Box office data via Thompson on Hollywood]
