Look at it from a woman writer's point of view as she has it stacked against her that she probably wants to make a movie in which somebody dies, love gets destroyed, etc, etc. These things are necessarily part of life and there is at least contention they should be part of movies.
We don't know what our hypothetical woman writer would do but we know she has it on her back that she will write another "Terms of Endearment" and that's good/bad in that the money it made was enormous but the enthusiasm from males was zero and likely will remain so.
What you don't know is whether she will write something like "We Need to Talk About Kevin" and it is a powerful piece of work about a school massacre written by Lionel Shriver. Perhaps you think this launches into a comparison of of macho movies versus chick movies but do keep in mind that Lionel is not a man. She chose that name and it also doesn't mean she is gay since she is married to a jazz musician (male). Lose any stereotypes as they don't work with her. (WIKI: Lionel Shriver)
Yah, so you're understanding chick movies, right.
Good for you as I don't.
The thing coming through clearly is any minority, in terms of penetration of the core of the Ol' White Boys of Old Hollywood, will have an extremely difficult time. In part there's probably some overt and maybe even more indirect racism (i.e. intolerance of any kind) in it but the biggest master in Hollywood isn't skin color or boobs but money.
The most hallowed demographic in Hollywood is apparently that of the young southeast Asian male. For Hollywood, if you hit with those boys, you made the money shot and you can often do that with the current pitifully awful but massively high-tech and enormous profit-making cartoon movies. There's no way I can know of the validity of the idea and it seems extreme but that's the general premise in-play for women trying to break into Hollywood as authors, directors, etc.
Any competent writer, male or female, could create a cartoon movie as it's hardly going to be a literary exercise. The general approach is to find who is alive at the end of the cartoon movie and write the outline going back to the start from the end. Then write the screenplay going forward from the start. The end. Roll cameras.
That's all very well but you have to find a woman writer who wants to do that. No way I can predict whether that's possible but it hasn't really answered the fundamental problem. She wants to write whatever she wants rather than writing it to order for some director. Maybe she would write the same thing but we don't know that.
The situation is even more desperate if she does want to write another "Tears of Endearment" because the precedent is there. But so what if men hated it since the movie made a fortune presumably from female ticket buyers. Men write similar types of movies in which the story makes you fall in love with someone, there is great struggle, but eventually our hero dies. There's always a place for tragedy in theater so the only question, in my view, is who will write it.
There is a situation not so far removed from this in the apparent 'tanking' of Apple on Wall Street after release of the iPhone 6s even though it sold more than ten million on the first weekend they were available. The stock market views that as all very well but what will the iPhone 6s do in China. In this context, massive sales in the U.S. and elsewhere are not as significant or even close to as significant as sales on the Chinese mainland.
There's another extended bit you could write on this ... but I won't ... and that's in the homogenization of product due to the globalization of the target audience. The summary is when Hollywood is ruled by nothing but money there's not much to expect other than more of these ridiculous spectacles in the cartoon movies.
The absurdity through all of this is a movie made solely for U.S. distribution may cost a couple of million to shoot and return fifteen or twenty million. Even with a one thousand percent profit, that's not enough to impress Hollywood since a movie is nothing unless it makes billions.
Likely that rolls you out to Sundance but then the city slickers in Hollywood may dismiss you for making 'art films' and what is more sudden death to a future in Hollywood than that.
Maybe people need to get looser in general. When the woman writer goes out to Sundance, she knows she won't make the massive income but she may make a good one. Perhaps her expectations in Hollywood are too high and that applies to a great many writers in addition to those women. Maybe the audience needs to get looser as we will see whatever we want to see but first we have to look where best to find it. How many look to Sundance for that is not clear but there may be a lot of hope out there.
We don't know what our hypothetical woman writer would do but we know she has it on her back that she will write another "Terms of Endearment" and that's good/bad in that the money it made was enormous but the enthusiasm from males was zero and likely will remain so.
What you don't know is whether she will write something like "We Need to Talk About Kevin" and it is a powerful piece of work about a school massacre written by Lionel Shriver. Perhaps you think this launches into a comparison of of macho movies versus chick movies but do keep in mind that Lionel is not a man. She chose that name and it also doesn't mean she is gay since she is married to a jazz musician (male). Lose any stereotypes as they don't work with her. (WIKI: Lionel Shriver)
Yah, so you're understanding chick movies, right.
Good for you as I don't.
The thing coming through clearly is any minority, in terms of penetration of the core of the Ol' White Boys of Old Hollywood, will have an extremely difficult time. In part there's probably some overt and maybe even more indirect racism (i.e. intolerance of any kind) in it but the biggest master in Hollywood isn't skin color or boobs but money.
The most hallowed demographic in Hollywood is apparently that of the young southeast Asian male. For Hollywood, if you hit with those boys, you made the money shot and you can often do that with the current pitifully awful but massively high-tech and enormous profit-making cartoon movies. There's no way I can know of the validity of the idea and it seems extreme but that's the general premise in-play for women trying to break into Hollywood as authors, directors, etc.
Any competent writer, male or female, could create a cartoon movie as it's hardly going to be a literary exercise. The general approach is to find who is alive at the end of the cartoon movie and write the outline going back to the start from the end. Then write the screenplay going forward from the start. The end. Roll cameras.
That's all very well but you have to find a woman writer who wants to do that. No way I can predict whether that's possible but it hasn't really answered the fundamental problem. She wants to write whatever she wants rather than writing it to order for some director. Maybe she would write the same thing but we don't know that.
The situation is even more desperate if she does want to write another "Tears of Endearment" because the precedent is there. But so what if men hated it since the movie made a fortune presumably from female ticket buyers. Men write similar types of movies in which the story makes you fall in love with someone, there is great struggle, but eventually our hero dies. There's always a place for tragedy in theater so the only question, in my view, is who will write it.
There is a situation not so far removed from this in the apparent 'tanking' of Apple on Wall Street after release of the iPhone 6s even though it sold more than ten million on the first weekend they were available. The stock market views that as all very well but what will the iPhone 6s do in China. In this context, massive sales in the U.S. and elsewhere are not as significant or even close to as significant as sales on the Chinese mainland.
There's another extended bit you could write on this ... but I won't ... and that's in the homogenization of product due to the globalization of the target audience. The summary is when Hollywood is ruled by nothing but money there's not much to expect other than more of these ridiculous spectacles in the cartoon movies.
The absurdity through all of this is a movie made solely for U.S. distribution may cost a couple of million to shoot and return fifteen or twenty million. Even with a one thousand percent profit, that's not enough to impress Hollywood since a movie is nothing unless it makes billions.
Likely that rolls you out to Sundance but then the city slickers in Hollywood may dismiss you for making 'art films' and what is more sudden death to a future in Hollywood than that.
Maybe people need to get looser in general. When the woman writer goes out to Sundance, she knows she won't make the massive income but she may make a good one. Perhaps her expectations in Hollywood are too high and that applies to a great many writers in addition to those women. Maybe the audience needs to get looser as we will see whatever we want to see but first we have to look where best to find it. How many look to Sundance for that is not clear but there may be a lot of hope out there.
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