A report from ReFrame says gender-balanced films like Wicked and The Substance deliver at the box office, however progress towards parity in hiring practices has stalled.
ReFrame, which was established in 2017 to push for systemic change among senior industry decision-makers, said on Wednesday films from the 100 most popular titles released in 2024 that received the Reframe Stamp for gender-balanced hiring across key roles earned more than double what non-Stamped films grossed at the worldwide box office.
The top 100 films are taken from IMDb Pro’s proprietary rankings based on page views. Stamped films comprised half of the 10 highest-grossing films in 2024. Female-led Inside Out 2 followed 2023 sensation Barbie as a Stamped film that topped both the year’s domestic and worldwide box offices.
The report notes that 2024 films generated $293.9m compared to $117.8m from those that did not earn the Stamp. Three of the top 10 best picture Oscar nominees met the Stamp criteria, and Stamped films have accounted for three nods each year since the expansion to 10 nominees in 2022.
However ReFrame said that since a “brief climb” in the first few years of its report between 2017 and 2019, parity has stalled, with 30% or fewer projects earning the Stamp over the past five years. ReFrame was established in 2017 by Sundance Institute and WIF (formerly known as Women In Film Los Angeles) and provides research and support to mitigate bias in the industry.
Wednesday’s report found that higher budget films were less inclusive, with the proportion of Stamped features on films budgeted at $100m or more being approximately half that of films budgeted at $15m or below. The average budget for a Stamped film fell by $18m from $63m in 2023 to $45m in 2024, while those for non-Stamped films fell by $8m from $76m to $68m year-on-year.
The number of female directors in the top 100 fell from 20 to 14. There were no transgender or non-binary directors, and only five women of colour, down by nearly 50% from nine in 2023. Female screenwriters declined by 23.3% from 30 to 23, and the drop was steeper for women of color falling by just under 63% from three in 2024 to eight in the prior year.
Lead acting roles reached parity, with 51 films starring women including one transgender woman. Of those 51 women, 17 were women of colour.
Co-leads (the four largest supporting roles) frequently include women, reflected in 97 out of 100 films. In 2024 four included a non-binary or transgender performer, although ethnic diversity for co-lead performers dropped by 24.1% from 58 to 44.
The 100 top films per IMDb Pro included 21 direct-to-streaming titles, which comprised 11 Stamped films (more than 50%), compared to 16 out of 52 theatrical releases (just below 31%), and three out of eight limited theatrical releases (just below 38%).
By company, Netflix and Amazon earned the ReFrame Stamp for more than 50% of their releases, while Apple, Lionsgate, and Paramount did not release any of the Stamped films in the Top 100.
When considering a Stamp, ReFrame reviews data on hires in key roles like director, screenwriter, cast, department heads, and more recently this has included line producers and an evaluation on whether productions engaged intimacy coordinators or stunt coordinators. Qualifying candidates include women, non-binary or gender nonconforming people, and trans people of all genders, as well as the race /ethnicity of those individuals.
No comments yet