Women Rule the Box Office

“Spy” beat “Entourage” last weekend in the battle of the two R-rated raunchy comedies.  The one featuring women in all the lead roles was first at the box office with a robust $29.1 million, and the one featuring men in all the lead roles came in third, after the previous week’s release, “San Andreas.”  This continues a strong run for women-led films.  In May, Forbes pointed out that six of the top ten films were “girl-powered,” including “Pitch Perfect 2,” “Tomorrowland,” and “Mad Max: Fury Road.”  “Moreover, three of them were somewhat gender-neutral. Only one wide release in the top twelve was wholly male-centric. ”

Call it causation, call it correlation, or merely call it coincidence. Come what may, last weekend showed that a Hollywood release slate with copious female-centric options at the multiplex did not harm the overall box office one bit. Not all of these films are good, not all of them are explicitly “feminist” and not all of them are necessarily marketed in a way that highlights their female-centric nature. Yet they are major studio releases, playing at a theater near you, that star women, tell stories concerning women, and (in some cases) concern relationships and conflicts at least tangentially related to the gender of their protagonists and/or antagonists. However, they exist, and they are making money.