Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie at a Barbie occasion in June in Sydney, Australia.

Hanna Lassen/Getty Images

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Hanna Lassen/Getty Images

Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie at a Barbie occasion in June in Sydney, Australia.

Hanna Lassen/Getty Images

Barbie will surpass $1 billion worldwide, in accordance with Warner Bros. estimates. Hard as it could be to consider, that makes director Greta Gerwig the solely lady within the billion-dollar membership with sole credit score for steering a movie.

A few different girls have shared credit score for steering motion pictures that made greater than a billion {dollars}. Both Frozen and Frozen II have been co-directed by a person and a girl, Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck. And Anna Boden co-directed Captain Marvel with Ryan Fleck. Wonder Woman, directed by Patty Jenkins, is among the many prime 60 highest grossing movies, not adjusted for inflation, but it surely has not damaged the billion greenback barrier.

Most of the flicks within the billion greenback membership are, predictably, male-oriented and franchise-driven. At this second, 53 films have made more than a billion dollars. Barbie is amongst solely 9 that middle feminine protagonists.

Nine, that’s, when you rely feminine fish. Finding Dory (2016) swims within the billion greenback membership, together with the animated princesses of Frozen (2013), Frozen II (2019) and Beauty and the Beast (2017). Two mega-franchises managed to spit out a billion-dollar movie with girls on the story’s coronary heart: Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) and Captain Marvel (2019). Then, two different billion greenback one-offs: Titanic (1997) and a live-action Alice in Wonderland (2010).

In quick, plots centering girls and women at present make up 18% of all billion-dollar motion pictures. Nearly half of them are animated movies made for youngsters. Blockbusters with robust woman characters are nice. But the dearth of tremendous profitable motion pictures about grown girls illustrates Hollywood’s notorious sluggishness in terms of gender parity.

“[This] is a reflection of what Hollywood has chosen to back with its biggest budgets, its largest marketing spends, and who it has … given the opportunity to direct and write and star in these movies,” The Hollywood Reporter‘s senior movie editor, Rebecca Keegan, identified on a recent episode of the podcast The Town. “So it’s a little hard to say that that’s responding to market forces versus that is a reflection of the culture that’s driven Hollywood for decades.”

The Town‘s host, Matthew Belloni, identified that on Barbie‘s opening weekend, girls made up 69% of ticket patrons domestically. “And then it actually rose to 71% female in the second weekend, which is unusual,” he mentioned. Anecdotally, it appears quite a few girls return to the film, bringing relations and mates. And Barbie‘s crossover enchantment to males can’t be denied.

Stacey L. Smith of the University of Southern California has lengthy studied inclusion in in style tradition. Her most recent report, from February, exhibits that feminine illustration in tv and movie has steadily improved. Her research seems to be on the prime 1,600 motion pictures in a given yr. In 2007, the proportion of feminine protagonists was solely 20%. In 2022, that quantity had risen to 44%. Not excellent. But far, much better than the numbers for the world’s most profitable movies that take pleasure in essentially the most studio help.

You’d hope that with Barbie, the variety of girls nominated for Oscars for finest director would possibly enhance. It’s a tragic little quantity. Only seven. And these numbers won’t even enhance in 2024. Barbie director Greta Gerwig has already been nominated for an Oscar, for her 2017 film Ladybird.