Female-Led Films The Biggest Successes Of The Year

Shailene Woodley in Insurgent, Cate Blanchett in Cinderella and Dakota Johnson in Fifty Shades Of Grey

There’s a trend emerging from the American box office, and it bodes well for female movie-goers.

So far, the three best-performing films of the year are movies with women in the lead roles – and all have attracted female-dominated audiences.

Shailene Woodley’s Insurgent took in $54m in the US box office, with an audience made up of 60 per cent women. For Fifty Shades of Grey the breakdown was 67 per cent female and for Cinderella – which has taken $122m in ticket sales over the past two weeks – 66 per cent of the audience were women.

This March/April period is traditionally a (big) moneymaker for Hollywood, with blockbusters releases as the Northern Hemisphere summer begins. In the past, films aimed at the so-called golden demographic: young men – including comic book behemoth The Avengers, which opened to the tune of US$170 million in 2012 – have triumphed in this release period.

But this year it’s all about the ladies.

Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games

Sure, before the end of the year, 30 superhero movies will have opened in the cinemas. Some, like the Avengers sequel and Terminator: Genisys (both slated for US summer releases) are guaranteed successes. But there’s also a slew of movies coming soon that are targeted at women: from Pitch Perfect 2 to Spy – a jokey action film starring Melissa McCarthy – and, ahem, Magic Mike XXL.

It’s a shrewd move, considering the past successes of female-led and targeted films. Last year, Jennifer Lawrence’s The Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 1 was the year’s highest grossing film (until the late onslaught of American Sniper, which was the highest opening of 2014 but made the bulk of its money in 2015). Women flocked to Mockingjay Part 1, making up 57 per cent of the audience, as they did for other female-led hits of the year, including Maleficent and Frozen.

So why, exactly, are women flocking the cinema while young men are staying at home? The rise in popularity of Youtube, online gaming and other forms of entertainment might be proving too strong of a lure for young men. Women, on the other hand, still love the experience of going to the movies, particularly in groups. Hollywood, are you paying attention?

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