By Jake Coyle, Film Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --A new study that analyzed four years' worth of films found that female-led movies have consistently outperformed those in which men get top billing.
The study analyzed the 350 top-grossing films worldwide released between January 2014 and December 2017. Researchers found that in films with small, medium and large budgets, all averaged better global grosses when a woman was listed as the lead star.
Conducted by the talent agency Creative Artists Agency and the tech company shift7, the study found that films that passed the Bechdel test do better, too. The Bechdel test, an invention of the cartoonist Alison Bechdel, rates whether a movie features two female characters having a conversation about something other than a man.
Researchers found every $1 billion film at the box office — including films like "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," ''Jurassic World" and "Beauty and the Beast" — passed the Bechdel test. Among films that cost more than $100 million to make, the ones that passed the Bechdel test grossed on average $618 million worldwide, while those that didn't averaged $413 million.
"Women comprise half the box office, yet there has been an assumption in the industry that female-led films led were generally less successful," CAA agent Christy Haubegger, who participated in the research, said in a statement. "We found that the data does not support that assumption."
For budget data and determining lead actor, researchers depended on data from the Nielsen's box-office data collection company Gracenote. Gracenote's Studio System defines a "female lead" as a woman who is listed first in official press materials.
Of the 350 films studied, 105 qualified as female-led and 245 registered as male-led. The greatest gap was in larger budgeted films. In movies with a budget greater than $100 million, there were 75 male-led films and 19 female-led films.
The study was conceived through a group that formed through the gender equality initiative Time's Up, including Amy Pascal, former chairman of Sony Pictures. Earlier research by academics has chronicled similar rates of inequality in top-grossing Hollywood releases, and the financial benefits of inclusion .
"This analysis affirms data showing that diversity has a positive impact on a company's bottom line," said Lisa Borders, Time's Up president and chief executive. "As studios consider their fiduciary responsibilities to their investors, these findings offer a clear approach to delivering the best results."
Google Witness At Antitrust Trial Says Government Underestimates Competition For Online Advertising
Federal regulators who say Google holds an illegal monopoly over the technology that matches online advertisers to publishers are vastly underestimating the competition the tech giant faces, an expert hired by Google testified Thursday.
Mark Israel, an economist who prepared an expert report on Google's behalf, said the government's claims that Google holds a monopoly over advertising technology are improperly focused on a narrow market the government defines as "open web display advertising," essentially the rectangular ads that appear on the top and along the right hand side of a web page when a consumer browses the web on a desktop computer.
But the government's case fails to account for a variety of competition that occurs beyond those rectangular boxes, Israel said. In the real world, advertisers have dramatically shifted where they spend money to social media companies like Facebook and TikTok, and online retailers like Amazon.
When you account for all online display advertising, not just the narrow segment defined by the government's case, Google gets just 10% of the U.S. market share as of 2022, he said. That's down from roughly 15% a decade ago.
In addition, advertisers have moved away from placing their ads on the screens of desktop and laptop computers where Google is alleged to control the market, with money migrating to ads placed on apps and mobile device screens. Israel cited marketing data showing display ad spending on desktop and laptop devices has decreased from 71% in 2013 to 17% in 2022.
The government's case "seems to miss where the competition is today," Israel said.
His testimony comes as Google wraps up its defense in the third week of an antitrust trial that began earlier this month in Alexandria,... Read More