by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
On July 7, Michael Bay dot com congratulated its director with this header: “Michael Bay Milestone.” The text reads, “This past weekend Michael Bay became the second-highest-grossing director of all time. Congratulations Michael.”
The figures are from Box Office Mojo, an industry insider site, that ranked him as having grossed $2,078.2 M USD as a career benchmark, pushed up the ladder by the recent release Transformers 2. Now. That’s nice, isn’t it.
Now reverse that stat. Look at it from another variable. Who are the female directors on this list… oh, wait, here’s one. Betty Thomas, the former Troop Beverly Hills (1989) actor who played the plucky Velda Plendor, and then turned her considerable energy to directing.
Yes, Betty Thomas, director of Alvin and The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009), is the only woman to break into the elite league of Big Bucks Boys.
Her filmography includes John Tucker Must Die (2006), I Spy (2002), 28 Days (2000), Dr. Doolittle (1998), as well as Howard Stern’s Private Parts (1997) and The Brady Bunch Movie (1995). (Most fans would probably recognize Thomas from when she starred on the TV series Hill Street Blues.)
She is #98 on the Top 100 Directors by box office totals, her benchmark is $563.3 M USD. Michael Bay is #2. Spielberg is far and away #1 with $4.155.9 M USD. These figures come from The Numbers as well as Box Office Mojo.
Thomas ranks just below Woody Allen with $564.3 M USD, and James Mangold at $556.1 M USD, but her reported worldwide gross BO total is more like $1 B USD.
Ironically, the only other “woman” in the Top 100 is the former Larry (and now named Lana) Wachoski of the Matrix franchise bros., who, with Andy, her brother, ranks at #69 with $667.7 M USD. Although South Korean-born Jennifer Yuh Nelson, helmer of Kung Fu Panda 2, rang in at $665.7 M USD in 2012, she still did not break the top earner’s list barrier. Her adjusted gross for Kung fu Panda 2 is around $163.3 M USD.
Nancy Meyers (What Women Want) almost made the Top 100, she sits at 101 with $549.8 M USD. The late great Nora Ephron (Sleepless in Seattle) still makes the list, although deceased, at 110 with $515 M USD.
The first woman ever to break $100 M USD gross, the former Laverne of “Laverne & Shirley” TV fame, Penny Marshall (surprised?) comes in at 147 with $400.7 M USD - mostly for BIG, the Tom Hanks’ launcher that still makes money.
Another Jennifer, newcomer Jennifer Lee, who directed Frozen (2013) comes in at 150 with $400.7 M USD. And there’s Amy Heckerling (Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), Look Who’s Talking, franchise) at 157 with $384 M USD.
Director Anne Fletcher (The Proposal) is in the 173rd spot with $343.2 M USD. Then it is Goodbye to the Top 200, except that the first Twilight’s director Catherine Hardwicke almost made in at 202 with $238.9 M USD. (Imagine if they’d let her finish directing the franchise, especially after launching Taylor Lautner, Robert Pattison, and re-launching Kristen Stewart? Stewart, a child actor, had only been noted in David Koepp’s Jodi Foster vehicle The Panic Room before the vampire flicks.)
For the record, our vaunted Oscar-winner slash groundbreaker Kathryn Bigelow is #259 with $210.8 M USD.
Before you start throwing around female director names like Alice Guy-Blachè, Dorothy Arzner, Leni Reifenstahl, Agnès Varda, Maya Deren, from the past, or Mira Nair, Lone Sherfig (An Education), Jane Campion, Katja von Garnier (Abgeschminkt; US title “Making Up!”), Penelope Spheeris (Wayne’s World), or even Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation) from the present - wait till you see this next bombshell from a professor at the School of Journalism & Media Studies at San Diego State University.
In 2012, a study from Dr. Martha M. Lauzen, “The Celluloid Ceiling: Behind-the-Scenes Employment of Women on the Top 250 Films of 2012” - http://www.wif.org/images/repository/pdf/other/2012-celluloid-ceiling-exec-summ.pdf - was published to little media fanfare. It is an eye-opener.
Dr. Lauzen displays a graph from 1998 to 2012 which clearly illustrates the disparity between men and women employed in the roles of Director, Writer, Exec. Prod., Producers, Editors, and DPs. The numbers break down as follows:
1998: 83% Men v 17% Women
2001: 81% Men v 19% Women
2005: 83% Men v 17% Women
2011: 82% Men v 18% Women
2012: 82% Men v 18% Women
The economy could be graphed here as well. In good times, 2001, women almost broke 20%. After 2003, when the US economy tanked, it was back to that “Celluloid Barrier” Dr. Lauzen addresses so brilliantly in the study.
This year, Dr. Lauzen came out with another humdinger: “It’s a Man’s (Celluloid) World: On-screen Respresentaions of Female Characters in the Top 100 Films of 2013.” Read her latest greatest hit here - http://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/files/2013_It's_a_Man's_World_Report.pdf
So it is a No Chance or No Choice?
If asked to name female directors, you would likely pick titles, Hardwicke’s Twilight (2008), Bigelow’s Point Break (1992) or Hurt Locker (2012), maybe Jane Campion’s The Piano, or the art-house Jennifer Aniston starrer, Nicole Holofcener’s Friends with Money (2006) or possibly Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay (1988) or her Mississippi Marsala (1991).
Whatever factor you want to throw in as a variable, there has been No Change. And while many look at Kathryn Bigelow’s groundbreaking Oscar for women helmets in 2012… reverse that stat. It took over 110 years in film for a woman to be recognized as Best Director.
Is it that women in directing just don’t get a chance to throw their hat in the ring for $100-$150-$200 M USD budget big tentpole pictures? It would be hard to believe that anyone of the directors mentioned above would balk at a few hundred million to make their movie.
Even as Brian Singer, of the X-Men franchise, ranked at 33 with $$980.5 M USD, looks 100% likely to recover from his recent brush with scandal, it is tough to imagine any female director withstanding that kind of controversy… since it is controversial enough just to “get on the list” to even be considered some of these huge money-makers.
So what is there to be done?
Well. AFI has a Women in Directing Workshop each year, which is a start; but more to the point, producers like Megan Ellison, Susan Downey, Angelina Jolie, and others could be looking to tap upcoming talent in the female directing pool.
Or, maybe you can just write to your local Major Hollywood Film Studio and demand more female-directed pictures, after all, women make up half of the box office totals.
According to 2013 MPPA figures, of the $10.9 B USD BO haul (up a mere 1% from 2012), 52% of Moviegoers were women, who picked up %50 of all tickets bought.
Perhaps movies like Maleficent, starring Jolie, and pulling off a whopping $300+ M USD, will hopefully open the door for more “female-driven” pictures - yes, that movie was directed by a guy, Robert Stromberg - maybe even actually directed by a woman.
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