Hot Pursuit has opened to critical panning and unfavorable audience reactions today. The $35 million Action-Comedy’s 6% rottentomatoes score, lack of persistent marketing and generally-unfunny jokes in its major trailer all point at a financial loss for Warner Bros. But there lies the hope for women filmmakers in this article: this movie was still released amidst all the panning, the negativity generally-aimed at female filmmakers, and the recent backlash from the leaked emails between Marvel CEOs concerning the perceived lack of appeal for female superhero films.
The leaked emails remind us of the general sexist attitude towards female filmmakers, specifically directors. The major studios, including Warner Bros, nowadays produce and distribute just a few dozen films a year with an average budget of over $100 million. All those superhero and mega-expensive films we’ve come to love, hate, and blog about are the proof. By now, we’ve all noticed that a tiny percentage of the directors of studio films are women, however, female independent directors are increasingly-abundant.
Hot Pursuit is directed by Anne Fletcher. Its two credited writers are males: David Feeney and John Quaintence. Time and time again does the evolution of movie financing come up during blogs, conferences, and in our very classrooms because of how major the changes are. Studios are reluctant to spend much money on the cheaper films that won’t generate big profits because of the rising expenses of distribution and increasing dependence on the international market (China’s consumption of our movies have grown 300% since 2009!) while big-budget tentpoles, while risky, are worth the expenditure for the chance of big profits because of our consumption of those tentpoles. Who here’s seen Avengers?
So what we have is an ever-changing Hollywood system more risk-averse than ever before, generally refusing to spend between 10 and $60 million for films that may have good quality but not reap much profits, the so-called “middle-budget” films. To hear more about it, check this out to have Steven Soderbergh himself explain it to you as he did at the San Francisco Film Festival last year.
But doesn’t that notion seem inert when films like Focus starring Will Smith, and now Hot Pursuit, get distributed for all audiences? Focus, a $50 million film, has generated $150 million worldwide, by the way, recouping its costs and making some profit. That said, “middle-budget” movies aren’t dead like many now-TV directors like David Lynch are saying just because they were rejected and forced into the Television industry. Sure, not all filmmakers make safe, commercial content like Focus and Hot Pursuit are, but still. Stars drive the business and these films have stars.
What makes Hot Pursuit interesting are its female leads, middle-budget financing and female director in a studio system that typically dismisses women in general for a seat in the director’s chair. According to a recent three year study posted on Variety, most women filmmakers exist in the independent film industry and tend to be able to create more quality work there. 12 women filmmakers from New York City alone debuted their films at Tribeca this year, however, most women filmmakers do not obtain opportunities to direct or even work on major studio pictures like men are able to get more easily (but still damn difficult). While the ratio of male to female-directed films screened at Sundance from 2002-2014 was 3:1, the ratio of male to female directors helming the top-grossing films from 2002-2014 – a total of 1,300! – was 23-1.
These stats are less infuriating than the reasons for them. As posted in the study, it was discovered that many industry pros, like Marvel’s CEO calling out female superhero pics, believe women either intentionally limit their ambition, believe female-directed films appeal to a small demographic, and even that they can’t handle the responsibilities of a director because women naturally can’t. Not only would this infuriate all female film graduates, undergrads and working directors, but many of their male fans as well. Who would argue against Kathryn Bigelow’s directing skills after The Hurt Locker’s popularity and commercial success, and then when the superior Zero Dark Thirty gave even more fame and fortune for the director? Let’s not forget Point Break¸ released back in 1991. Let’s not forget Nancy Meyers’ Something’s Gotta Give, a delightful, universal adult romantic comedy released to critical and commercial success as well as being a prolific screenwriter and producer for other hits such as Private Benjamin, The Parent Trap, It’s Complicated, Father of the Bride, and more. These films released in the ‘80s, ‘90s, and the last decade, when Hollywood’s sexism was arguably more abundant than it is now because feminism was still working on many of the obstacles that were worse then.
Let’s not blame Catherine Hardwicke or Sam Taylor-Johnson too much for directing the first Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey, respectively, either. They were hired to bring hit novels to life and did deliver big profits for the studios that distributed them. They were just screwed by the mediocre source material and the greedy studio mentalities that held back their talents. Taylor-Johnson, after all, directed the well-received, smartly-done Nowhere Boy¸ an indie biopic of young John Lennon that was a delight to watch. One can be suspicious enough to claim they were hired to bring these mediocre novel hits to life because they were women directors and these stories appealed the young female market. The study surely suggests that, and the source novels do not do justice to these talented directors. We all do know how the studios can intervene too much and ruin potentially-amazing storylines. After all, we’re still complaining about Spiderman 3.
Which brings up The Amazing Spiderman 2. It was hit with the same problem: the studio asked for too many villains. If Andrew Garfield, who plays Peter Parker, said the script was amazing before the studio intervened, then there’s more proof of studios ruining the chance for bright female directors to bring us quality films and help their unnecessarily-surveilled work and tarnished reputation. Let’s not forget that Garfield played a major role in The Social Network, the Best-Adapted Screenplay Oscar-winning film penned by the brilliant scribe Aaron Sorkin, creator of The West Wing, the #7 TV Drama series of all time on Forbes’ List and The American President. Garfield knows good writing.
While it’s unfair the studios can hire female directors for mediocre adaptations which generate big profits, then use the excuse of how crappy the movies were to keep them out of better directing jobs, Hot Pursuit does prove one thing: the jobs are still there, at least. Some people say there aren’t enough jobs for women in the industry because it’s such a boys club. No. It’s just that it takes too much fight to get them.
After all, this industry moves along from relationships and trust. Those two got Anne Fletcher the director’s chair. Sofia Vergara and Reese Witherspoon, who is credited as one of the producers, got a script with a predictable premise and unfunny jokes greenlit and distributed. If one can believe big bucks can be thrown at amazing material from the proof that is all the billion-dollar making franchises and sleeper hits who win Oscars, then one can believe trust and relationships can deliver mediocrity as well on any budget. The studio jobs are there; they are just tougher and more frustrating for women filmmakers to obtain because our studio heads, raised on sexist Baby Boomer standards of women, have a hard time believing they can direct for the largest demographic that gives them the most money: the 18-34 demographic. Unless they actually want to profit from a story that’s not a film or TV series yet, but has generated money and appeal from a strong female demographic, a women director just won’t be eyed for the director’s chair. At least, at first.
So what can we tell our female grads and undergrad student filmmakers about finding work in the studio system? What can we tell those who lament “the death of cinema” because of these studio turds and yet another glass ceiling for women filmmakers? Here’s what we can tell them, thanks to Hot Pursuit – which won’t make any money but still gives Witherspoon, Vergara and Fletcher the spotlight – and thanks to all those women filmmakers proving their might and clawing their way to Hollywood twice as hard as male filmmakers are: The real fight is just about to begin. And we’re all watching and behind you 100%.
The prize is more proof that reducing gender stereotyping in any professional market can help it thrive by letting its doors open a bit more. In this case, Hollywood would just be letting in more talent, after complaining about how small their list of talent is. And if they complain about some duds from any woman-directed studio films, well… who directed Batman and Robin?
Who directed most of the duds that we watched since 1895, when film started popping up?