2 Big Studios, No Women Directors Through 2018

That's 47 male-directed movies
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 22, 2016 8:45 AM CDT
2 Big Studios, No Women Directors Through 2018
Ava DuVernay arrives at the Governors Awards at the Dolby Ballroom on Nov. 14, 2015, in Los Angeles. DuVernay was the first African-American female director to be nominated for an Oscar for 2014's "Selma."   (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Nearly 50 movies from two major studios are slated to come out through 2018—and there's not a female director to be found among them, according to a tally by the Wrap. It found Paramount is set to release 25 films, while 20th Century Fox will debut 22 (that number doesn't count movies released by Fox Searchlight, its indie-film division), and the lack of women at the helm underscores the gender discrimination problem in Hollywood and adds to the "epidemic of invisibility" experienced by women, minorities, and members of the LGBT community, as a February AP story on the issue put it. Per a report by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, women directors made up just 9% of all directors who had worked on the top 250 grossing domestic films in 2015.

There has been an attitude shift and increased willingness to talk about the issue—Stacey Snider, for instance, became the co-chairman of 20th Century Fox in November 2014 and noted, "It's incumbent upon us as business leaders to really address [the gender discrimination problem] seriously." But it may take awhile to remedy, as films coming out over the next few years were in the works long before "the outcry of gender-bias reached deafening levels," as the Wrap puts it. Jodie Foster tells the Advocate that even female execs like Snider, who "have risen to the top and not really made a dent in bringing many women into the mainstream world," can be part of the problem. She thinks a more "complex conversation" is needed. Head to the Wrap to see the slate of 47 coming male-directed films. (More gender discrimination stories.)

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