By Sandy Cohen, Entertainment Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) --The director of "Bridesmaids," ''Spy" and the upcoming "Ghostbusters" remake says he would add an equity clause to his future film contracts that requires gender-balanced casting of minor roles.
Paul Feig said he supports such efforts to push the movie business toward gender parity.
"I think we need to set these things in stone so it forces everybody to think that way," he told The Associated Press.
Feig was part of a panel discussion Wednesday night at the actors' union Los Angeles headquarters about Hollywood's gender bias. The talk with actress Maria Bello, directors Caroline Suh and Tina Mabry, and University of Southern California professor Stacy L. Smith followed a screening of the short documentary "The 4%: Film's Gender Problem." The film's title refers to the number of top movies directed by women over the past dozen years.
Smith, whose studies on gender and Hollywood informed the documentary, suggested A-list stars consider an equity clause in their contracts so that some movies might reflect real-world demography. Her research found that women represented 30 percent of speaking roles in the films of 2014.
Bello said she is part of an effort to develop a "gender parity stamp" to recognize productions that are actively increasing opportunities for women on both sides of the camera.
Research shows women are half of film-school students and movie ticket buyers – not to mention the human population – yet play the lead in just one in five films and are outnumbered by male directors 23 to one.
The documentary, directed by Suh and available on-demand on EPIX, includes interviews with such filmmakers as Catherine Hardwicke, Lake Bell, Anjelica Huston and Julie Delpy, who says: "The next Kubrick, in no one's mind, is a woman."
Local school staple “Lost on a Mountain in Maine” from 1939 hits the big screen nationwide
Most Maine schoolchildren know about the boy lost for more than a week in 1939 after climbing the state's tallest mountain. Now the rest of the U.S. is getting in on the story.
Opening in 650 movie theaters on Friday, "Lost on a Mountain in Maine" tells the harrowing tale of 12-year-old Donn Fendler, who spent nine days on Mount Katahdin and the surrounding wilderness before being rescued. The gripping story of survival commanded the nation's attention in the days before World War II and the boy's grit earned an award from the president.
For decades, Fendler and Joseph B. Egan's book, published the same year as the rescue, has been required reading in many Maine classrooms, like third-grade teacher Kimberly Nielsen's.
"I love that the overarching theme is that Donn never gave up. He just never quits. He goes and goes," said Nielsen, a teacher at Crooked River Elementary School in Casco, who also read the book multiple times with her own kids.
Separated from his hiking group in bad weather atop Mount Katahdin, Fendler used techniques learned as a Boy Scout to survive. He made his way through the woods to the east branch of the Penobscot River, where he was found more than 30 miles (48 kilometers) from where he started. Bruised and cut, starved and without pants or shoes, he survived nine days by eating berries and lost 15 pounds (7 kilograms).
The boy's peril sparked a massive search and was the focus of newspaper headlines and nightly radio broadcasts. Hundreds of volunteers streamed into the region to help.
The movie builds on the children's book, as told by Fendler to Egan, by drawing upon additional interviews and archival footage to reinforce the importance of family, faith and community during difficult times,... Read More