BY Women and Hollywood
Quote of the Day: Viola Davis on Her Move to the Small Screen
At this year’s TCA, two-time Oscar nominee Viola Davis confirmed that taking on the lead role in Shonda Rhimes’ How to Get Away With Murder was a response to not being able to find enough...
Nina Jacobson Signs First-Look Agreement with Fox 2000
Nina Jacobson’s Color Force has just signed a three-year first-look deal with Fox 2000. Recent Fox 2000 successes include The Fault in Our Stars. Jacobson previously worked with the division in...
Trailer Watch: Director Cherien Dabis Makes Her Screen Debut in May in the Summer
A month before her wedding, Jordanian-American May (Cherien Dabis) visits her mother (Hiam Abbass) in Amman to convince her to attend the big day. A successful writer back home in New York, May...
Marvel Superhero Thor to Become Female Character in Comics
In a surprise announcement today on The View, Whoopi Goldberg reported that the character of Thor, played by blond beefcake Chris Hemsworth in his namesake movies and in The Avengers, would become a...
Latina Women Are this Summer’s Hottest Demographic at the Box Office
According to a new study commissioned by TheWrap, this summer Latinas are buying more movie tickets than any other demographic. Latina women over the age of 25, in fact, go to the movies more often...
Women in Film and Television International Seeking Shorts for Female Filmmaker Showcase
In celebration of International Women’s Day on March 8, 2015, Women in Film and Television International (WIFTI) is soliciting films by women directors from all over the world to feature in its...
Karyn Kusama’s The Invitation is Gamechanger Films’ Next Project
Director Karyn Kusama (Girlfight, Aeon Flux, Jennifer’s Body) has just completed shooting The Invitation, the second project financed by Gamechanger Films. The thriller finds a man (Logan...
The Big O: 2015 Oscar Preview: Expect Reese to Rise Again and a Woman to Crash the Directing Category
Wow, that was fast. The movie year is already half over, and if you are a fan of Legos, sequels to bombastic blockbusters, and just-OK comedies, you probably think everything has been awesome in...
Trailer Watch: New Spot for Juliette Binoche/Kristen Stewart Drama Clouds of Sils Maria
A new trailer has been released for the director Olivier Assayas’ Palme d’Or contender Clouds of Sils Maria. The showbiz melodrama centers on an aging actress, Maria (Juliette Binoche),...
Jane Clark Talks ‘Crazy Bitches,’ Horror Films and Slasher Satire
Seven crazy bitches and one fabulous gay guy take a weekend getaway to a remote ranch for some R&R, gossip, and grub, to celebrate their friend Alice’s birthday. What the group finds out is...
More Details on the Fox Mentoring Program for Women Directors
As you read earlier, Women and Hollywood will be one of the nominating organizations of the Fox Global Directors Initiative. Each organization gets to nominated 10 women. After we put in the...
Let’s Not Put an Obit on Melissa McCarthy’s Career Post-’Tammy’
From my latest Forbes post on how the press is wrong about Tammy: Melissa McCarthy’s film Tammy grossed $21.5 million last weekend and it has grossed $36 million since it opened a week ago on...
Weekly Update for July 11: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening Audrey — Co-Written by Sybil Darrow “Too old, too ugly, too stupid, too fat — 34-year-old single gal Audrey (Sybil Darrow) is none of these, not that...
Director Courtney Hunt Begins Shooting Follow-Up to Frozen River
Frozen River writer-director Courtney Hunt has begun shooting her second film, the courtroom drama The Whole Truth. The Keanu Reeves vehicle sounds just as compassionate and as unflinching as...
Universal Chief Donna Langley: There is No “Magic Bullet” to Improve Number of Women Directors Working on Studio Films
The Summer DGA Quarterly has hit and director Nicole Holofcener is on the cover. I have been told that Nicole is only the second-ever female director to be featured on the cover, the first being...
Trailer Watch: Reese Witherspoon Heals Herself in “Wild”
Call 2014 Reese Witherspoon’s comeback year. The Walk the Line star will play the lead in two movies this Oscar season, The Good Lie (October 3) and Wild (December 5), and co-star in Inherent Vice...
Patricia Arquette on Why Boyhood is Winning Over Audiences and Why She Loves Network TV
Perhaps best known for playing the title character in NBC’s Medium (2005–2011), Patricia Arquette co-stars in Boyhood (out today), the passion project that director Richard Linklater filmed in...
Anne Morrison Appointed BAFTA Head
Former BBC exec Anne Morrison will become the second-ever female chief of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Morrison, who began her career as a TV producer and director, will occupy...
Land Ho! Director Martha Stephens on Her Raunchy Comedy About Two Old Men and Her Unlikely Muse
Land Ho! tells the story of two very different ex-brothers-in-law whotravel to Iceland for a holiday. It’s about life and regrets and coming toterms with the fact that you are getting older....
Trailer Watch: First Spot for Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken
Angelina Jolie fires an early warning shot to her fellow Oscar contenders with the new trailer for Unbroken, her inspirational biopic of Olympic runner and World War II prisoner-of-war Louis...
Orange is the New Black Leads Emmy Comedy Nods
The Emmys nominations are out, and Orange is the New Black leads the comedy categories with 12 nods, including those for star Taylor Schilling, supporting star Kate Mulgrew, and guest stars Natasha...
Canadian Film Org Launches Mentorship Program for Women Directors
Canada’s largest artist-run film production and education organization, the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT), has launched an intensive five-month mentoring program for women...
Marti Noxon Developing Gillian Flynn Novel into TV Series
Mad Men and Buffy the Vampire Slayer writer Marti Noxon has signed on to adapt Gillian Flynn’s debut novel, Sharp Objects, into a TV series. Sharp Objects centers on a young newspaper reporter...
Halle Berry and Alien Babies: Will Extant Revive the Mystical Pregnancy?
In pop culture, one of the best ways for a female character to get some distance from gender clichés is to literally leave Earth. To wit: Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley in the Alien movies; the...
Trailer Watch: Catherine Keener Tries to Find Her “War Story”
Catherine Keener is one of those actresses I’m always happy to see on screen, but unfortunately she hasn’t had a starring role since 2011’s Peace, Love, and Misunderstanding. So it’s great...
Stringent New Rules to Push Smaller Documentaries Out of Oscar Race
Several documentarians are crying foul that the Academy has effectively shut out smaller nonfiction movies from the Oscar race. A report from Deadline notes that new requirements to qualify for...
Emma Watson Takes it to the Next Level
Since graduating from the Harry Potter franchise and Brown University, Emma Watson has been carefully planning her transition from child to adult star. So far that’s meant playing teen characters...
Trailer Watch: The Killing Has More Killings on Its Fourth and Final Season on Netflix
The twice-canceled, thrice-resurrected crime series The Killing will resume on Netflix starting August 1. In its fourth and final season, lead detectives Sarah Linden (Mireille Enos) and Stephen...
BFI Film Fund’s New Requirements Promote Diversity On and Off Screen
The British Film Institute Film Fund took a major step in championing gender, racial, sexual, class, and physical diversity yesterday by implementing new guidelines for financial support. Under the...
BBC Works Around the Gender Problem of Reboots By Turning Some Male Characters Female
Here’s the gender (and race and queerness) problem with our current reboot culture: The products of yore that Hollywood is currently refashioning into new but familiar entertainment commodities...
How to Create a Record-Busting Feminist Blockbuster: The Case of Frozen
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Catherine Deneuve to Lead Dinard Film Festival Jury
Catherine Deneuve, who remains as busy as ever at age 70 with over 120 credits to her name, will preside over the 25th Dinard British Film Festival’s (October 8–12) competition jury. Deneuve...
Agnes Varda to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award at Locarno Film Festival
French auteur Agnes Varda will receive the 2014 Locarno International Film Festival’s (August 6–16) Golden Pard award, the Swiss event’s lifetime achivement honor. The director of more than...
Weekly Update for June 27 and July 4: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening OpeningJune 27 BoundBy Flesh (doc) — Directed by Leslie Zemeckis Atthe height of their fame, conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton were thetoast of vaudeville....
Maleficent Grosses $600 Million Worldwide, Becomes Fourth Highest-Earning Film of the Year So Far
The Wicked trend of turning villainnesses into anti-heroines continues to pay off. Maleficent has now crossed the $600 million benchmark, becoming the fourth highest-earning film of the year so...
Orange is the New Black Doesn’t Have to Apologize for Not Including Men
Orange is the New Black is a show about women, by women, based on the real experiences of one woman. It’s not perfect, but it’s good. In fact, it’s really, really good! It prominently features...
Trailer Watch: A Man Robs a Bank for Love in the Documentary “The Dog”
Bonnie and Clyde might shame every other star-crossed bank robber with their unimpeachable glamour, but John Wojtowicz was determined to give their romance a run for its money. Directors Allison...
Update: Tina Fey Not Producing Hocus Pocus Sequel, But Developing Another Witch Project
Update: Yesterday, it was widely reported (including by us) that Tina Fey would be producing and possibly starring in Hocus Pocus 2. Deadline quickly put a kibosh on that rumor, however, and claimed...
Lena Waithe to Write BET Pilot Based on Her Webseries “Twenties”
Six Reasons to See Tammy This Weekend
Tammy, the new comedy co-written by and starring Melissa McCarthy, opens today. Sadly, the film is not getting great reviews — at the time of posting, it’s at 18% on Rotten Tomatoes. I may...
Fox Launching Mentoring Program for Women Directors
Fox exec Nicole Bernard will spearhead a new initiative aimed at hiring more women directors at the film and TV studio. The Fox Global Directors Initiative will recruit twenty candidates for a...
July 2014 Film Preview
As was the case in June, July offers lean pickings as far as major women-centric releases are concerned. Tammy, co-written and produced by Melissa McCarthy, whose star has been on the ascent since...
Trailer Watch: It’s Not Easy (But It Sure Looks Like Fun) “To Be Takei”
In his 77 years, George Takei has lived many lives: Star Trek actor, radio announcer, (heterosexual) sex symbol, Japanese-American activist, LGBT activist, social-media icon, and, at long last,...
Beyonce Tops Forbes’ 2014 Celebrity 100 List
2014 is turning out to be the Year of Beyonce, and it’s only half over. Riding high on the creative and commercial success of her self-titled album released late last year, Queen Bey has been...
HBO to Air Docs on Monday Night Year-Round
Documentarians better get their HBO pitch ready, because the premium cable channel is in the market to buy a whole lot more nonfiction content. It looks like the parade of boobs and guts on Game of...
The First Wives Club Musical Planned for Broadway
Proving that boomer nostalgia needn’t always refer back to Mad Men days, a musical adaptation of the 1996 comedy The First Wives Club is in the works for Broadway. But first, it will reopen next...
Jessica Williams is Leaving “The Daily Show” After Raising Its Game
Jessica Williams: “The Daily Show” Your favorite “Daily Show” correspondent is leaving the late-night program. Entertainment Weekly has revealed that Jessica Williams’ last episode will be...
Jessica Williams: Raising The Daily Show’s Game
Keira Knightley Explains Why She Enjoys Working With Female Directors
Keira Knightley is perhaps most recognized for her period collaborations with director Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice, Atonement, Anna Karenina), but she’d like to be known for something else as...
Beyoncé, Lupita Nyong’o, Nicki Minaj Among BET Awards Winners
Beyoncé was the big winner at last night’s BET Awards, where she was named Best Female R&B/Pop Artist, won Best Collaboration (with husband Jay Z for “Drunk in Love”), and nabbed the...
Judy Blume to Publish Her First Novel for Adults in More than Fifteen Years
Mark your calendars: Judy Blume will publish her first novel for adults since 1998’s Summer Sisters next year. Blume is the author of such school-library staples as Are You There God? It’s Me,...