Warner Bros Honcho Decrees: No More Films With Female Leads

Deadline Hollywood Daily:

This comes to me from three different producers, so I know it's real: Warner Bros president of production Jeff Robinov has made a new decree that "We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead". This Neanderthal thinking comes after both Jodie Foster's The Brave One (even though she's had big recent hits with Flightplan and Panic Room) and Nicole Kidman's The Invasion (as if three different directors didn't have something to do with the awfulness of the gross receipts) under-performed at the box office recently. "Can you imagine when Gloria Allred gets hold of this? It's going to be like World War III," one producer just told me. (I put in a call to Glo, who comments below.)

Read the whole story: Deadline Hollywood Daily

Comments

[Balzac]

The Warner Bros Honcho is a jerk.

It reminds me of how the CBS executives want to use the example of Katie Couric to suggest that women should not be evening news anchors.

Regardless, I'd pay not to see Jodie Foster in her new movie. Just the posters give me a head ache.

Jodie Foster really sensed the zeitgeist. The world was crying out for more cinematic gun violence, and more self-righteous, white, American vigilantes shooting people for the greater good.

[hootie1fan]

What about the female leads in Ishtar, Heaven's Gate, Waterworld, Adventures of Pluto Nash, etc., etc.?

[nunzia]

Jodi F was really good in the movie. Incredible acting, so subtle, nuanced, effective. I thought it was compelling, riveting nd at the move I attended people clapped at the end. Other have told me about clapping in the theatre at the end also. That's a little discomforting because it ain't the usual smarmy phoney gotta-do-t­he-right-t­hing ending.

[zencat]

Yes, please. Give us more movies with the annoying likes of Ben Stiller and Jim Carrey. Morons.

[Cunningham]

My family decrees: WE WILL BOYCOTT WARNER BROS. FILMS.

[Purple Girl]

Well of course it was the fault of the actresses they weld so much influence in the industry. they did everything in their power to further ruin the screenplay, encouraged crap directions, made sure bad scenes were not put on the editing floor and went on MSM to tell America this movie SUCKS. where is Bugs Bunny when you need him for crucial decisions- out trying to get some tail as usual.

[helen]

Hollywood continues to be ruled as a white man's good old boy club. Their one principle: greed. Sex sells. Violence sells. (Don't get me wrong, I like both at times.) But the main leading roles go to men. And if you are an openly gay man, you don't get the leading role. And the woman had better be a box office draw, or else. Ben Stiller can make a film that tanks, and he'll get another, and another, and another. Same with Owen Wilson. But if you're a minority, a woman, or GLBT, you better deliver. Otherwise, only white men need apply.

Sick...

[sinnerjizm]

It always cracks me up when the ReichWing talking heads whine on about 'Liberal Hollywood'

[priorzola]

The movie industry is making the same mistakes as the record industry. With every movie they make they try to swing for the fences putting all the money, effort, and talent into making movies that will reap the most money at once. Meaning the most formulaic films for the most easy to amuse audience, 15-year-old boys or people with the emotionally maturity level of a 15 year-old-boy constitutes the bulk of films in the market.

It was the same kind of problem that led to deep problems with the record industry, pop music for 15-year-old boys and girls who will eventually figure out how to get the product cheap or at no cost. Movies and music made for fringe parts of the market (that often can reap great rewards because so little was put into the work that if any audience that it can justify the expense) and movies and music of a high quality that endures (meaning you want to own it and watch it over and over and over again) isn't part of the long term planning for producers. Just like the rest of corporate America, movie studios are only concerned with the next quarter grosses and not with producing films that will bear artistic and, possibly, monetary fruit in the future.

There was a time when movies were made for women. In the 30's-50's housewives constituted a huge portion of the audience so much so that daytime matinees where often the most lucrative for the industry. Now those women are working and, instead of spending their hard earned cash on themselves, they give it to their teenagers who spend it on brain-dead movies and video games. When adults seize back control of the family pursestrings and splurge on themselves (on things other than sports cars and plastic surgery) then our culture will reflect the sophisticated tastes that are out there but are often ignored for the easy buck.

[Average]

What an incredably STUPID idea this man has!

[debbego]

do you think this might have anything to do with Warner Bros receiving all that money from Abu Dhabi?

[SharonWantsToTalk]

debego, explain what you say about Dhabi. I am not failure with this story. On another note: maybe movie goers are just tired of the same old worn out scripts spun just a little differently. Been there done that doesn't even begin to describe the movie viewers apathy.

[SharonWantsToTalk]

I'm not even FAMILIAR with this story ;)

[mommyatty]

Hollywood is the ultimate Revenge of the Nerds - arrested adolescents who cut their teeth making fun of the popular kids in high school yearbook. They graduate to television where they can sit in a room and say things like "Courtney Cox' womb is full of twigs." When they finally work their way to the top, they hate and resent the women who suddenly pay attention to them. Gee, Mr. Robinov, do you feel better now??

The male posters on here can decry the lack of female blockbusters. But just watch the next time a Something's Gotta Give comes out and succeeds. The entertainment media will inundate us with stories about the shock felt in Hollywood. Then the little boys, who will not understand why a relatively inexpensive film could resonate with a demographic that will show up and pay the same price as the men, will ruin the film's legacy with copycats that flop. And they will come out again and announce that films about women cannot succeed.

But they can pat themselves on the back (or wherever) because beautiful actresses return their calls.

[UtahLiberal435]

In order to make profitable movies with female leads, especially in the action-blockbuster genre, which is where the big bucks come from these days, they need female leads who can handle the action stunts credibly. OR big-name actresses who haven't gone formulaic.

Jodie Foster hasn't done good work ever since Silence of the Lambs. Her space-time epic sucked, as did Panic Room and Flightplan. A lot of the action in Mila Jovovich's Ultraviolet and Charlize Theron's Aeon Flux clearly had to work around the actresses. By contrast, Crouching Tiger-Hidden Dragon and similar Chinese films broke the mold for both cinematic beauty, poignant storytelling, and high-end action.

Moral: Get female action leads from China and Hong Kong. Perhaps the writers too. And keep studio suits from meddling. End of problem.

The rest of this story is basically: "Warner chairman is simplistic exec tired of losing millions to pc; female lawyer smells big lawsuit $$."

[blahber]

follow the money, honey: http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/alltimegross?region=world-wide

although now his comments are out in the public, you can expect an entire division to be devoted to women led, female-centric films soon. AND it should succeed for a few months before it losses everyone their shirts and careers.

before bashing male-centric movies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFI's_100_Years..._100_Movies

men and women are drawn by male actors, men are rarely if ever drawn by female actresses, and women themselves often have reservations about specific actresses. One female poster called today's crop of female actresses "BIMBOS".

Sheese, imagine if this man had said that.

[Blutus]

The internet and the changing
demographics of America
have Hollywood on the run.

They continue to pump out
psychotic crap and don't understand
when "small" movies become huge
hits.
Like movies about Greek weddings
or little girls and their grandfathers.
Or penguins.

They need to learn Spanish, Mandarin
and Urdu.
Red dots.

Song and dance.
People are afraid.

No more psycho-killer, vampire ghost,
crooked cop, yadda yadda yadda,
war worship nostaligia over so-called
"good wars".

A culture as spiritually dead
as America
can't make movies anyway.

And who says Jodie Foster
is a "female" lead??