Over the past few years, we have (slowly but surely) seen women take on more prominent roles in the movie industry, and even though 2020 was a terrible year for cinema on many levels, we did take a significant step forward in terms female representation behind the camera.
According to new study from San Diego State University, 16% of the top-grossing films released last year were helmed by women, and 2020 saw female directors, cinematographers, writers, editors, producers, and executive producers make up 21% of all filmmakers working on the year's top 100 movies. This marks only a small jump from 20% in 2019, but it's still a noteworthy increase.
As far as the CBM genre goes, we had Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman 1984 and Cathy Yan's Birds of Prey, but other notable releases from female directors include Niki Caro's Mulan, Miranda July's Kajillionaire, Amy Seimetz's She Dies Tomorrow, and Autumn de Wilde's Emma.
Of course, had COVID-19 not reared its ugly head, we would have been able to add Black Widow (Cate Shortland) and Eternals (Chloé Zhao) to that list,.
Both of those Marvel Studios films were pushed to later this year, and along with the likes of Disney's The One and Only Ivan (Thea Sharrock), a new take on Cinderella (Kay Cannon), The Nightingale (Melanie Laurent), and the Candyman reboot (Nia DaCosta), 2021 might just take another step forward for inclusivity in Hollywood.