The War on Women's Films

In October of 2007, John Robinov, the president of production at Warner Bros. Pictures, decreed, "We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead." This came shortly after the commercial failures of the films The Invasion and The Brave One, starring Nicole Kidman and Jodie Foster, respectively. Sources said he didn’t even want to see a script with a female protagonist.

I’m assuming he completely forgot or ignored the fact that Jodie Foster recently starred in Flightplan and The Panic Room, each of which grossed about $200 million worldwide. He also might have forgotten the fact that both The Invasion and The Brave One received mixed reviews, and the former film went through so much production turmoil that it actually had to replace the director twice.

Men’s movies flop at the box office and it’s blamed on the lack of star power, poor marketing and promotion, or a poor script. But when these two women star in one movie that doesn’t bring in the big bucks, all of a sudden there’s all the proof you need that women don’t get people in the theater seats. Maybe people didn’t want to waste their money seeing two films they’ve seen before. The Invasion and The Brave One are pretty much carbon copies of the films Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Death Wish -- men making bad decisions and then blaming them on women — nothing new.

But upon reading a recent article in the New York Times about the decline of the “chick flick”, I’m beginning to begrudgingly agree with Robinov’s assessment, even if his logic is flawed. Essentially the article discusses how hard Hollywood is trying to get men to see chick flicks. Recent films that would clearly fall under that umbrella, like Music & Lyrics, The Nanny Diaries, The Holiday, P.S., I Love You, and The Jane Austen Book Club, all flopped miserably at the box office. The Katherine Heigl vehicle 27 Dresses did considerably better, managing to gross 76 million dollars domestically on a budget of about 30 million. But even that is not only lower than the expectations for the film itself, it doesn’t measure up to the romantic comedies of the past like My Best Friend’s Wedding and Sleepless In Seattle.

Now one has to account for the fact that none of these films received great reviews (romantic comedies rarely ever do). And romantic comedies (which are the films most likely to star women) as a whole are known for being formulaic and predictable. But since when have the masses always agreed with the critics? Terrible reviews didn’t keep the embarrassingly bad Wild Hogs from grossing $168 million. Nor did they keep the stale sequel National Treasure: Book of Secrets from making $218 million. Don’t forget the completely unnecessary Rush Hour 3, starring Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan — critics all but threw vegetables at the screen — but it managed to gross $140 million. After looking at the facts, I don’t exactly buy the “women’s films are bad” explanation.

Article Author: Film Laureate

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