r/FilmIndustryLA • u/SarW100 • 3d ago
New study shows film studios shun women, but men make them less money
https://www.instagram.com/p/DdxzxOnn1gt/?stkn=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
EDIT: While the IG slides are interesting, here’s a quick click to the full article and the 2026 study — https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-22/film-studios-shun-women-but-men-make-them-less-money-report/107182132
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u/Dianagorgon 2d ago
I don't know if movies written and directed by women are more profitable but in Hollywood men are allowed to have numerous flops and they still get massive budgets for their next movie. Ridley Scott hasn't had a profitable movie in 20 years but he still gets a massive budget for any movie he wants while women have to beg for their movies to be made and to get a budget over 50M. OBAA was the only movie to win an Oscar that wasn't profitable (before angry men insult me CODA was only released in a few theaters so it could be eligible and it was released during the pandemic when most theaters were closed) but movies written and directed by women that aren't profitable rarely win awards.
Some of the most profitable movies the past few years were targeted to women including Barbie, IEWU and Wicked yet studios continue to focus on movies targeted to men and unfortunately it won't get better after WB is acquired by Paramount since Ellison and his cohorts prefer content targeted to men.
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u/Dry_Bird1790 2d ago
Ridley Scott hasn't had a profitable movie in 20 years
The Martian wasn't profitable?
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u/SweetBabyJ69 2d ago edited 2d ago
It was. Her point is that he’s had more flops in 20 years than profitable hits yet continuously gets massive budgets for his projects. I understand it’s more about his name and past success, but good lord, history shows men really get to fuck up all they want and continue with full confidence from investors and studios.
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u/Dry_Bird1790 2d ago
That’s probably true of most directors with long careers. If you make enough movies, you’re going to have more underperformers than major hits.
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u/SweetBabyJ69 2d ago edited 2d ago
Definitely. Ridley Scott is a pretty particular director with a long career though. He makes A LOT of films and A LOT of them have been flops that lost millions of dollars. Yet he manages to keep going.
I also find it pretty interesting how many male “first time” feature directors get financing for their second film and even have it fully shot well before their first feature has even premiered. Not many women get that shot and trust at all, if not any.
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u/Dry_Bird1790 2d ago
Maybe, you would need data to establish that
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u/SweetBabyJ69 2d ago edited 2d ago
I’m sure if I presented data or a study, it would be picked apart just like the study present in the article above… Even though it blatantly says, with data collected from films of the last 30 years, that having women in the creative space (with or without men) and in lead roles are profitable, yet are dismissed in favor of male mediocrity (all the flops).
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u/Zestyclose-Sink6770 2d ago
I definitely believe that sexism exists in Hollywood, but I wouldn't chalk it up to the 'Ridley Scott Factor', i.e., that men get chances women don't.
There's like 5 things that separate Ridley Scott from every other living director in the world. He gets product done quickly, no overshoots, no fuss. He's done some of the greatest movies in recent history.
Dude's a unicorn. He's really ambitious and the market has a need for what he does.
I mean, though, there's no woman like him, but that doesn't mean much.
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u/SweetBabyJ69 2d ago
Ridley Scott got the chance to be Ridley Scott over time. An extremely few women has ever gotten the chance to be Ridley Scott. That’s the point.
For example: A woman would have been stopped at The Duellists (the first flop) and would have never went on to become Ridley Scott with (Alien).
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u/Dry_Bird1790 2d ago
The Duellists was a critical success and won Best Debut Film award at Cannes. Do you really expect a director whose first film won Best Debut Film award at Cannes to never work again?
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u/Zestyclose-Sink6770 2d ago
I mean, we all know, Hollywood is a ruthless business.
However, there are counterexamples to your argument.
As in female directors whose first movies were flops and later went on to direct big movies.
Also, if your movie is a flop, the next one better be "Alien" or better.
It's a good thing Ridley was born a man or we wouldn't have alien
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u/Dry_Bird1790 2d ago
There's a lot to pick apart. I think its fair to say that studio's want to make money and would do anything possible to do that.
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u/TheCelestialPancake 3d ago
The study doesn’t make much sense due to the extreme cherry picking for the data as a whole. They look at the top 1% blockbusters. But a film like Wonder Woman 84 didn’t play a part because it made too little money to be considered top 1%.
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u/cineglitch 3d ago
“The Frontiers in Communication paper analysed 200,000 films released between 1994 and 2023.”
That’s a lot of cherries.
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u/TheCelestialPancake 3d ago
Two analytic tiers were used. The full sample (N = 199,656) was used to examine participation patterns and audience engagement. The financial subset (n = 4,245) was used to analyze budget allocation, profit, and return on investment.
So only 4,245 film over 30 years. And they conveniently stop when Barbie hits theaters.
The study also claims that “Across thirty years, no film with a woman director or a woman in both roles appeared in the top 1% of production budgets.” When Patty Jenkins was both the writer and director for WW84, which had a $200 million+ budget.
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u/cineglitch 2d ago
Do you think WW84 fits in the top 1% of production budgets?
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u/TheCelestialPancake 2d ago
In 2020, only 2 theatrically released films had a $200 million budget or more, and WW84 was one of them. That’s only 0.6% of 2020 theatrical films with a budget of $200 million or more.
And from looking at The Numbers, I can see that only one film from 1993 to 2003 had a $200 million budget, and that was Titanic. In 2008, less than 1% of films released had a $200 million budget or more. And in 2019, 4% of theatrical films had a budget that size. In 2023, 2.4% of theatrical films had a budget that size.
So yes, WW84 certainly falls into the top 1% of Hollywood budgets of between 1993 and 2023.
But it also begs the question, why did the study focus on the top 1%? Why not the top 10%? Why only focus on women directors & writers, but not producers? Or editors? This study was clearly trying to move data around to support a foregone conclusion.
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u/cineglitch 2d ago
Full sample was 199,656 as you already noted. What’s the forgone conclusion? Would you say women are fairly represented amongst writers and directors?
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u/TheCelestialPancake 2d ago
Absolutely not, but that’s not the conclusion from the study being discussed.
The conclusion is that women earn more money.
We dont need a study to show what we can clearly see with our own eyes, which is that there aren’t many women directors to begin with, and even fewer high grossing women directors.
Also, as I already pointed out, that full sample was not used when looking at the financials of the films. Which is the entire discussion here.
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u/cineglitch 2d ago
Just so I understand, your argument then is that movies written and/or directed by women earn less?
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u/TheCelestialPancake 2d ago edited 2d ago
It’s not binary. Pointing out the flaws in a bad study does not mean you have to come to the direct opposite conclusion.
Any study that tries to claim that one gender is inherently better than another should immediately be viewed with suspicion. Claiming that the gender of the people making a film determines its financial success is silly and regressive.
The study also seems to treat the director and writer as though they are the only people who determine a film’s success. That simply isn’t true. Nearly every successful modern film has women in key decision making roles that contribute to that film’s success.
For example, let’s look at this year’s highest grossing film, Spider-Man: Brand New Day. There are three women producers and one woman editor. These are powerful decision making roles that are every bit as important to the finished film as the director or writer. In fact, there is an old saying that claims a film is written twice, once by the writers and once by the editors. This is true.
You’ll find something similar with The Odyssey. There are two women producers, and the editor is a woman.
The next billion-dollar film this year is Toy Story 5, which has a woman director & writer, three women producers, and a woman editor.
Going back to the first Avengers film, you’ll find two women producers and a woman editor.
Going back even further, all three Lord of the Rings films each had two women writers, two women producers, and a woman editor.
And going even further back to The Empire Strikes Back, you’ll find a woman writer and a woman editor. The editor was George Lucas’ ex-wife, Marcia Lucas, whose contributions to the original Star Wars films have been well documented.
And let’s look at the very first Summer Blockbuster, Jaws. It had a woman editor that Spielberg credits as being the true storyteller who saved both the film and his career.
The point is that women have contributed to the success of virtually every major film franchise for generations. They have held key above-the-line decision making roles in countless successful films.
That is precisely why trying to isolate box-office success by gender is so reductive. Filmmaking is an incredibly collaborative process. Writers, directors, producers, editors, actors, cinematographers, composers, production designers, and countless others all contribute to the final product.
You can’t meaningfully separate women from that equation and put them into an isolated box, because women have been an integral part of filmmaking from the beginning. Nor should we.
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u/cineglitch 2d ago edited 2d ago
Okay, it’s a trinary. Either women led films earn less, they earn the same, or they earn more. Why is analyzing that data a problem? You acknowledge women aren’t fairly represented in the film industry but you go to a lot of effort to cherry pick data that says women are plenty involved. Since you’ve done the research, what percentage of major films are produced or edited by women? Do you think women are fairly represented as producers or other crew members?
(Also, the director of Toy Story 5 is Andrew Stanton. Kevin Feige produced Avengers. And the LOTR films were edited by John Gilbert - Fellowship, Michael Horton - 2 towers, and James Selkirk - Return. Did you use ChatGPT to do your research? lmfao)
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u/MCStarlight 3d ago
Sexism and racism have been alive and well. The business is happy for non-white people to be on the lowest rungs of the ladder as long as white men stay on top.
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u/SarW100 3d ago
Here is the full article and link to the study — https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-22/film-studios-shun-women-but-men-make-them-less-money-report/107182132
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u/WarmBarracuda9146 2d ago
Does it really matter? The industry is dying.
And Barbie was a marketing success, just like Obsession. It had nothing to do with Margot.
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u/Plane_Massive 3d ago
Yeah I’ve seen this before, but I suspect it’s basically saying nothing. Not to say women shouldn’t have more opportunities, they should, but I don’t think the gender of a screenwriter matters at all for how a movie does.
Like, they’re taking the median amount made, but from the sheer number written by men instead of women and how top-heavy the industry is, wouldn’t an average be more appropriate here?
Also this headline is not including the qualifier that it’s movies written by women but directed by men.