Women and Film

“The Women” was a movie made in 1939, which had an all female cast, 130 roles all filled by women. Based on a play of the same name, the movie’s focus is the relationships of women. The plot starts with one woman, Mary Haines, finding out her husband is cheating on her by way of a talkative manicurist. The movie follows the friendships and how they grow stronger, or fall apart, when men are the issue. For a full synopsis click here.
The movie was a successful play and was so successful at the box office it spawned a musical remake. Here is an example of a great movie that was a box office success. So why was the 2008 remake so hard to produce? In 1994, Julia Roberts and Meg Ryan were in talks and production was starting on a remake on this romantic comedy classic. The off camera and on camera names signed on would have been any movie studio’s dream. Famous names attached to the project included James L Brooks, Candice Bergen, and Marisa Tomei. Also, a writer for the then successful “Murphy Brown” sitcom had updated the screenplay.
All was going well with production until the two big stars/ co-producers (Ryan and Roberts) wanted to play the same role. Diane English retooled the script to satisfy everyone, which took time, and actresses/directors were changed in and out due to poor scheduling. Diane English decided to helm the project herself and slashed her asking budget by $10 million. Every studio rejected her with the same reason: an all female cast would bomb at the box office. English had a list of female movies including, “9 to 5,” and “First Wives Club,” which were box office hits. Studio heads refused to see a pattern and instead claimed every movie directed towards women that did well was a fluke.
English saw this movie through and developed it as an indie (another word for low budget) and pitched the whole thing to the head of Picturehouse Production, who was the only man to see the all-female cast as an asset. Romantic comedies get green lit because women are assumed to like romance. A female buddy comedy, though, is assumed to tank, even though there are examples of films of this nature doing quite well. In this age of equality and movies get cranked out like they are on an assembly line, why did this movie have to fight so hard? Is an all female cast that much of a turn off?
As of November 17,“The Women” had grossed almost $27 million dollars and had a $16 million dollar budget. The budget was small and some actresses received a much lower than normal salary to be part of this film. The budget is minimal compared to other films (Paul Rudd’s comedy “Role Models” had a reported $28million budget). Women, as filmmakers and audience members, need to be respected and appreciated. Though equality abounds everywhere else, the film industry still presents a biased atmosphere.

Sources for this article:
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20219070_20219072_20222088_3,00.html
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/