Female leads in major motion picture -- what's your thoughts?

[camarade]

Is it a proven fact that movies with female leads always makes less money?

I've been working on a fantasy trilogy for a few years now and a few days ago, it just occured to me that the screenplays has a lot of strong female characters in it. Suddenly, I'm considering re-writing the Protagonist completely into a male lead.

I guess it's a complex thing... right down from the audience to the actual producers themselves. There are some powerful women in the industry, but do they ever read scripts -- and if they do, wouldn't they still pick the male lead script since they know it makes more money for them...?

[clang]

It may be true on average, but certainly not always. I don't think the gender of your protagonist will affect your script's saleability at all - it will either be irrelevant to the story, or will make the protagonist's relationships more or less interesting/original/humorous/whatever, especially if gender politics are a theme.

Remember too that producers give 'sex changes' to roles all the time, e.g. the lead character in Salt was originally male.

Which gender makes your character and the plot better? That's the only issue you should be thinking about.

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

Is it a proven fact that movies with female leads always makes less money?

I've been working on a fantasy trilogy for a few years now and a few days ago, it just occured to me that the screenplays has a lot of strong female characters in it. Suddenly, I'm considering re-writing the Protagonist completely into a male lead.

I guess it's a complex thing... right down from the audience to the actual producers themselves. There are some powerful women in the industry, but do they ever read scripts -- and if they do, wouldn't they still pick the male lead script since they know it makes more money for them...?

Here's my advice as a total industry outsider... don't make such a change. If you write for 'what sells' you will probably be the most frustrated person... ok one in the millions of frustrated people who have 'written for what sells', and found that their material doesn't even get an an interest of an agent... in Bugtussel... let alone Hollywood...

Which leads to... you have a higher likelihood of winning the Lagos Sweepstakes Lottery, than you do selling anything to anyone in Hollywood.

Therefor keep your material as you envision it... and... collect a group around you to Make Your Movie...

[Chris Adler]

Or turn your story into a series if novels that become wildly popular so a studio buys the rights for them, and you can secure first-dibs on writing the scripts.

You probably have as much of a chance of success following that route as you do selling a spec trilogy to a studio.

I agree with the previous post-- make the films yourself if you want to see them on a screen.

[Mitch Gross]

Tell that to the producers of the "Alien" franchise.

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

Tell that to the producers of the "Alien" franchise.

That would probably be Walter Hill, who, along with David Giler, is credited with the female "Ripley" character... and the android twist...

But the Alien series is sort of singular in a number of ways... Ripley as played by Sigourney Weaver is never a 'sex bomb', and in the later installments takes on an almost Spokian like 'unfeeling' style.

But I do think the number of female lead 'action' films that have been wildly successful is very short...

[Randall_Oelerich]

Is it a proven fact that movies with female leads always makes less money?

Yes, if foreign. The foreign market almost always prefers a strong male lead. But if the female lead is a name actor, well known (think Kate Beckinsale, Angelina Jolie, etc) the domestic USA sales will probably be good and foreign distribution will be okay to good. But, if you are thinking of say producing a film from your own script and pre-selling to foreign territories to fund your production (e.g. using a combination of foreign territory pre-sales, state tax incentives, gap financing), or selling a microbudget indie film after it is made-- the foreign sales agents will much prefer a male protagonist over female (I say this from spending a couple of months on filmspecific.com, learning about the $1M blueprint method often used for funding films, and from contacting a few foreign sales agents to see if what i learned on filmspecific.com had merit).

That said, I write horror stories with female protagonists, and I think it is somewhat more acceptable to have female protags in horror, but still, male is always better if it can be done. I just can not motivate myself to write with male protags yet, not sure why. But we see female protags in horror lots (Grudge, Ring, Texax Chainsaw, etc); but lots of horror with male protags too.

[nycineaste]

I'm pretty sure the Ripley part was written as a man, and then just cast as a woman without changing the screenplay.

[vincent6805]

Think Ridley Scott -- Alien. STORY STORY STORY!

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

Think Ridley Scott -- Alien. STORY STORY STORY!

While Ridley Scott did express great enthusiasm for a female 'lead', the original script, by Dan O'Bannon, did not include a female lead... that along with the addition of the Android character was a change written by the writers Walter Hill and David Giler.