Box Office
Will Divergent be the Next YA Phenom?
I wish people would stop calling Divergent a Hunger Games knock-off. Sure, the two franchises have some similar elements, like an ass-kicking teenage heroine struggling to survive in an improbable...
Frozen Estimated to Become Highest-Grossing Movie in Disney History
Who knew that the best holiday gift Disney could give itself was turning its back on its past? Last November’s Frozen flipped the script on the passive-princess protagonists and...
Suck It, Haters: Female-Led Films Make More Money
“Sorry, Cate Blanchett: ‘Films with women at the center’ don’t make money,” proclaims an embarrassing editorial by Marcus James Dixon at the Gold Derby today. Dixon was referring, of...
Frozen is First Woman-Directed Movie to Make $1 Billion
Women want to see movies about women. And since women buy the majority of movie tickets (and boys and men will buy tickets to watch the adventures of female protagonists), movies about women...
Statistics
Statistics on the State of Women and Hollywood FILM2015 Women Behind the Scenes Women comprised 19% of all directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors and cinematographers working...
When Does a Fluke Officially Become a Trend?
My latest piece from Forbes: The big news last week was rightfully the passage of a towering figure in history, Nelson Mandela. So it’s not surprising that most people — including...
Why Big Weekend For Frozen And Catching Fire Is A Great Thing For Women In Hollywood
Latest piece for Forbes This past weekend was a record breaker at the box office for films starring female characters. Catching Fire from Lionsgate continued its march towards being one of the top...
Teen Heroines Kick Box-Office Ass During Holiday Weekend
Move along, Black Friday. Thanksgiving weekend belonged to Katniss Everdeen and Frozen’s Anna, who helped propel female heroines to the top of the box office. Not only did The Hunger Games:...
Catching Fire Does Super Hero Numbers and Becomes Highest Opening Weekend Starring a Female Lead
My latest Forbes piece: It’s been a big fall for movies starring women at the box office. First, Gravity starring Sandra Bullock broke all October records. That film opened at over $55 million...
Latest Forbes Piece: A Female Revolution at the Box Office
When you spend your time writing about women and Hollywood there are many, many days when things seem bleak and downright depressing. But not this week. This week I am filled with hope, and that...
Final Trailer for Hunger Games Catching Fire
The tracking for this film is huge. Predictions have it opening at $150 million. The first film in the series opened in March and grossed $152 million on its opening weekend. It is the largest...
Gravity Has Biggest October Opening in History
Gravity hit big at the box office over the weekend, grossing much more than was predicted for Alfonso Cuaron’s sci-fi epic starring Sandra Bullock. The film grossed $55.6 million, making it the...
My First Forbes Piece: Gravity — A Step Forward for Women Onscreen
I believe that it is important to talk about the issues related to women and Hollywood to as wide as audience as possible. That’s the only way we will make progress. So, I am happy to report that...
The Summers of Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep can’t do much wrong in our book. Her newest film, Hope Springs, opened this past weekend on over 2,000 screens. A film that cost $30 million to make has now made over $20 million...
Scarlett Johansson To Be Highest Paid Actress for The Avengers 2
Scarlett Johansson is set to be the highest paid actress in Hollywood. After Johansson’s popular turn as Black Widow in The Avengers, a role she reprised from Iron Man 2, producers for The...
Cartoon of the Day: A Couple Leaves The Movie Theatre…
To see more cartoons by the great Liza Donnelly check out her Forbes site.
Media Alert: Op-ed in Washington Post
In case you haven’t seen my tweets and Facebook posts from the weekend, I had an op-ed piece in the Washington Post yesterday. Please check it out if you haven’t: Memo to Hollywood: Women go to...
What’s Up With Magic Mike?
Magic Mike opens tomorrow. I didn’t get an invite to a screening (maybe someone at WB thought I wouldn’t be interested but I am) so I can’t say anything about the content but I have to take...
Brave Scores $66 Million Opening Weekend
Brave from Pixar opened up at $66 million this weekend. Here’s a great quote from Grady Smith from EW in his box office roundup: For the third time this year, following strong openings from The...
Women’s Films Opening — June 15, 2012
Your Sister’s Sister I saw Your Sister’s Sister back at the Toronto Film Festival in September. I really liked it. I highy recommend it. The film is the story of sisters Iris and Hannah played...
Quote of the Day: “Why? Why? Why? Don’t they want the money?
That is the quote Meryl Streep uttered Tuesday night at the annual Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Awards. She was onstage to present Viola Davis with her Crystal Award for Excellence...
Women’s Films Opening — June 8, 2012
Lola Versus — co-written by Zoe Lister Jones I think that Greta Gerwig is a wonderfully interesting actress. She’s made a steady progress from her mumblecore roots to romantic interest in a...
Charlize Theron Has a Pretty Good Weekend at the Box Office
Snow White and the Huntsman starring Kristen Stewart and Charlize Theron opened in the US and in number of overseas countries this past weekend. It grossed $56.3 million in the US, and $35 million...
The Marginalization of Women’s Stories During The Summer Movie Season
The summer movie season kicked off this weekend with gusto with the record breaking $200 million opening of The Avengers. I joined the throngs on Friday afternoon for a showing and there was much...
Women’s Films Opening — May 4, 2012
The Perfect Family — directed by Anne Renton, written by Paula Goldberg and Claire V. Reily The Perfect Family written by Paula Goldberg and Claire V. Reily and directed by Anne Renton and...
Female Reviewer Gets Attacked for Avengers Review
While I am not usually that interested in boycentric blockbusters, I am very into seeing The Avengers. I want to see how an open feminist man like Joss Whedon makes a big budget Hollywood film. Will...
The Hunger Games Scores the Third Best Opening Weekend EVER
The Hunger Games broke a bunch of records with its stellar $155 million box office haul over the weekend. It also opened in about 67 foreign markets making another $59.3 million. I think this film...
MPAA Data Shows Women and Men Each Buy Half the Movie Tickets Sold
For the second year in a row the MPAA has released data showing that men and women each buy half the tickets to movies. (Here’s the post of the 2010 stats.) Two years ago women bought more than...
Will The Hunger Games Be The First Real Female Franchise?
In a little less than two days the film based on the first book of The Hunger Games trilogy will hit the big screen. Already over 2,000 screenings on Thursday night are sold out and theatres are...
How Big Will The Hunger Games Open?
The news is that this week when The Hunger Games came onto the pre release tracking (which is what the studios use to gauge awareness and desire to see a film) it was huge — so huge that...
Hunger Games Advance Ticket Sales Break Records
This is very, very good news. Advanced tickets went on sale last week for The Hunger Games which opens on March 23rd. According to Fandango, the one day total for the film was bigger than the one...
Sexism Watch: Gender Disparities in Actor Salaries
I saw a story the other day about how the actor Chris Pine (whose new film This Means War opens today and looks beyond dreadful) was being sued by his former agents over non payment of commissions....
Top Grossing Women Centric Films of 2011
When I read that The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo crossed the $100 million mark, it reminded me to take a look at how women centric films did last year. One film — Twilight- Breaking Dawn is...
Strong Box Office for Kevin and The Iron Lady
We Need to Talk About Kevin directed by Lynne Ramsay reopened (after an Oscar quallifying run in December) in the US to strong numbers last weekend. The film scored the highest per screen gross of...
Lame Idea of the Day — Making a Bridesmaids Sequel Without the Lead Bridesmaid
The Hollywood Reporter released a story yesterday saying that Universal was planning on moving ahead with a Bridemaids sequel but that star/co-writer Kristen Wiig as well as co-writer Annie Mumolo...
Twilight’s Melissa Rosenberg Becomes Highest Grossing Female Screenwriter
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Melissa Rosenberg, the writer of all five Twilight movies has now surpassed Linda Woolverton as the top grossing female screenwriter with her films grossing a...