Women’s films make more money, but most cash goes to men: study

By Stephen Beech

Movies written by women make studios the most money — but the bulk of Hollywood's budget still goes to male filmmakers, reveals a new study.

Researchers found that films by female screenwriters top profit and return on investment rankings.

Some of the most successful movies at the box office in recent years — including "Avatar: The Way of Water," "Barbie" and "Jurassic World" — were co-directed or co-written by women.

But women are still "severely underrepresented" in the industry, suggest the findings published in the journal Frontiers in Communication.

Study lead author Anja Huwiler said: "Films with a woman screenwriter but no woman director had 34% higher median profits than films with only men in those roles, despite similar budgets.

"Yet 39 of the 44 films in the top 1% of production budgets were male-only productions, and none involved a woman director."

The study used a dataset of almost 200,000 movies released between 1994 and 2023, including theatrical and nontheatrical releases.

Poduction budgets and worldwide gross revenues obtained for a subset of more than 4,200 films showed one clear trend was the slow pace of change.

Huwiler, a researcher at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, said: "The share of films crediting at least one woman as a director or screenwriter increased from 21.5% in 1994 to 29.4% in 2023.

"After nearly 30 years, fewer than one in three films included a woman in either role."

She said that in the financial subset, another — and perhaps more puzzling — pattern emerged.

Films written, but not directed, by women, with budgets comparable to those of male-only productions, generated the highest median profit of around $35.9 million — 34% higher than the median profit of male-only productions ($26.8 million).

Films written but not directed by women also generated a higher return on investment (ROI), which is a measure assessing capital efficiency.

A positive value means a project generated more money than it cost.

ROI excludes marketing and distribution costs and other revenue sources.

Films written but not directed by women had an ROI of 1.1, 25% higher than that of male-only films (0.88).

Movies with women in both directing and screenwriting roles achieved a similar ROI to male-only films when operating on half the budget.

Films with higher budgets were male-dominated, accounting for 74.8%, 78.6% and 88.6% in the top 10%, 5% and 1% of budgets, respectively.

Hoever, no film involving a woman director reached the top 1% of production budgets across the 30-year period.

Huwiler said: "Among the 44 films in the top 1% of production budgets, the five films written but not directed by a woman had a median profit about $113 million higher than male-only films, despite having slightly lower median budgets,"

The findings showed that in the top 5% of budgets, the median profit of films with a woman screenwriter but no woman director was $556 million, around $86 million higher than the male-only median.

And in the top 10% it was around $452 million, around $134 million more than that of male-only productions.

While the study didn't examine the driving factors for the trend, previous research suggests it may be because people in decision-making positions are keen to avoid uncertainty and risk and tend to stick to what is familiar.

Huwiler said: "The extreme uncertainty of film financing can make familiar people and established ways of working feel safer, especially when decision-makers are risk- or loss-averse.

"This can reinforce the status quo even when the financial evidence points elsewhere."

She says achieving lasting change is difficult, adding: "I suspect it may require changing how people get their chance in the first place.

"One possibility is to make looking beyond those familiar circles a normal part of staffing and budgeting decisions, rather than something that depends on one individual deciding to take a chance."

Huwiler pointed out that the financial subset represented predominantly U.S. theatrical releases, and that some groups — such as women directors — were small, making some findings descriptive.

Gender was also inferred by first names in the entire dataset, which could mean that women from certain backgrounds may be undercounted.

Huwiler added: "I think one value of this study is that it looks at the issue through a financial lens, not only as a question of representation.

"Studios and investors care about whether their investment decisions are consistent with the financial outcomes they observe.

"My results provide a reason to examine existing hiring, greenlighting, and budgeting practices."