Female stars with the top returns, and a look at the 85% rule

By Sarah Sluis

Today Forbes compiled a list of female stars that give the most return on their salary. They divided the total gross of the film, including DVD and television, by the star's salary to get their number. The formula has its flaws, namely that a supporting part in a big-name movie can put you near the top of the list. They also only looked at the star's past three films, though arguably, that kind of short-term outlook is what flies in Hollywood.

The top ten actresses were Naomi Watts, Jennifer Connelly, Rachel McAdams, Natalie Portman, Meryl Streep, Jennifer Aniston, Halle Berry, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway and Hilary Swank. At the top of the list, each dollar Watts earned brought in $44 at the box office. For the bottom three, each dollar brought in $23 at the box office. In contrast to normal 'A' Lists, the group highlights some lesser-known stars by presenting the information through a different lens.

The unusual grouping also brings to mind the movie mindset that focuses on opening weekends instead of theatrical runs. A month ago, I noted that quiet film Julie & Julia was playing strongly week after week, which was expected given its audience demographics. While the industry standard works off a simple formula of exponential decay, meaning that they expect to earn half as much each week (adding up to 85% in the first three weeks), many movies defy that formula For example, since my post, the percentage of gross Julie & Julia earned from its first three weeks dipped from 73% to 64%--and it's racked up $91.9 million. It just kept on making close to the same amount of money, week after week. The news is good for theatre owners, too, since they earn a greater percentage on the film as weeks go by.

I took a look at some other films to see where they fell using the 85% rule (keep in mind some 2009 films are still playing, so the percentage may eventually lower a point or two). Turns out, the films I decided to check out first--films I simply remembered strongly--usually outperformed, earning 85% or less of their gross from the first three weeks. They have sticking power. It took random selections from Box Office Mojo to find a movie that actually went over the 85% rule: take the March release Street Fighter: Legend of Chun-Li (by now, a faint memory). It earned 91% of its gross from the first three weeks.

Most hits fell below or met the 85% rule. Sex and the City earned 78% of its gross in the first three weeks.Twilight, even though it dropped over 60% in its second week, went ten percent below the rule: 74%. Star Trek, with its strong word-of-mouth, brought in 71%. A youth-oriented hit like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen also released on a Wednesday, boosting its front-end gross: 84.3%. A summer flop like Year One? Just barely over, at 88%.

When you look at platform releases, it's a whole different story. Slumdog Millionaire earned just 2.4% of its gross in the first three weeks, and the reigning champion in my mind is My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which earned 1% of its gross in the first week. It didn't even fulfill the rule of platform releases, which is a $15,000 or more gross per theatre. It earned just $5,000--a number it stuck to for most of its run.

While the 85% number is useful, especially for those frantically calculating potential gross after opening weekend, it's interesting to see the range of results--especially when tweaks of a few percent adds up to millions.

Disney Princess Watch

By Sarah Sluis

Continuing my Disney theme from yesterday, the studio made several announcements about its upcoming movies, including three princess-themed projects, each planned for a December release over the next three years: The Princess and the Frog, Rapunzel, and The Bear and the Bow.

Disney had the stroke of genius several years ago to group all their princesses together into one marketing line of "Disney Princesses," and with the December release of The Princess and the Frog, they've added one more to the group and put its protagonist, Tiana, front and center.

The Princess and the Frog will be a return to Disney's hand-drawn animation (which makes me nostalgic for my youth), and feature its first black princess. Because there's never been a black princess before, Disney is under

much more pressure to come up with an unequivocally positive role model. The full trailer for the movie, as well as the teaser that released awhile ago, has made many uncomfortable. I think part of this has to do with the characters' New Orleans accents, which seem to differ by race, as the black and white princesses in the trailer talk differently. Knowing Disney, this has been extensively researched and is historically accurate, but it can be uncomfortable to hear because these accents have been so frequently lampooned in other contexts. There's also some voodoo/black magic references that could generate mild controversy. The credits say the movie comes from the directing team that did Aladdin, which also faced criticism from Arab-American groups for the lyric "Oh, I come from a land.../Where they cut off your ear/ If they don't like your face/ It's

barbaric, but hey, it's home." After protests from the group, they changed the rhyme to "Where it's flat and immense / And the heat is intense" in the home-video version.

'Princess and the Frog' Teaser Trailer @ Yahoo! Video

Rapunzel, which is scheduled for a Christmas 2010 release, has cast its main roles. Mandy Moore will voice the lead and sing Rapunzel's songs, and Zachary Levi of "Chuck" will play the male lead. Moore is definitely more talented than her debut as a 15-year-old pop singer revealed, so I am thrilled to see her take on this role. The plot, too, has been expanded and changed from the original fairy tale. When Disney announced an adaptation of Rapunzel, many were disappointed, since the female is especially passive in the fairy tale. According to the presentation, Rapunzel will be much more of a female hero. Her hair still "comes to the rescue," but this time she uses it as a weapon to defeat their enemies.

Finally, artwork for Pixar's The Bear and the Bow, planned for a December 2011 release, was unveiled. The character sketches look much different than the bubbly CGI animation that has characterized Pixar's work, so I am curious to see how this visual look develops. It appears that Pixar is trying to emulate the style of Medieval artwork that was popular during the time period of the film, which takes place in 10th century Scotland (French animated film Azur et Asmar did similar work incorporating Middle Eastern-inspired artwork into its animation). They also revealed that the plot will be less about the princess (Reese Witherspoon) finding love, and more about her relationship with her mother (Emma Thompson). There's also a witch, par for the course, who will be voiced by Julie Walters.

Each of these films has tried to "twist" typical Disney plotlines towards the empowerment of young girls, a move that I applaud. In the end, Disney will have three more princesses to add to its line, and three more stories to enchant young and old audiences. Sounds like a win-win.

Surprise! Only 7% of mainstream movies directed by women

By Sarah Sluis

Put film directors in the category of dead presidents: most are white males, and their average age is 45, when most of them are mid-career. It's the kind of information that gets rehashed occasionally with an aura of outrage, as it was in a New York Times article yesterday. Some blogs, like Women & Hollywood, offer dedicated, consistent commentary on female filmmakers, and consistently point out their absence.

Certainly directors in this "dead president" demographic are capable of directing movies that appeal to audiences beyond themselves, just as directors like Kathryn Bigelow can direct war and action movies (though her gender turned some heads and became the focus of many of her publicity interviews and articles). Many female directors work in designated genres, like movies appealing to kids and teens, or romance and comedy. Not one has won an Oscar for "Best Director." When the female demographic is directing only 7% of the films, and working on less prestigious, non-award-seeking projects, the gap seems even worse.

It's easy to forget about the dearth of women in the film industry because women do work in virtually every area of the business, and most of the "firsts" in female filmmaking have already been taken (the Academy Award for Best Director notwithstanding). Some suspect that the lifestyle required by a director turns many women off to the position, but I don't buy that. There's also evidence that people react more negatively to certain types of female leadership, leaving women a narrow range in which to discipline and delegate without being called that B-word. Finally, with so few female directors out there, they simply don't look the part, and are more likely to be called into question or sent back to central casting.

By drawing their talent from such a narrow range of people, studios are selling themselves short. As the article puts it, "Directors who are overwhelmingly of the same sex and ethnicity can hardly be expected to tap all of the cinematic potential in a rich and roiling humanity."

Hollywood seems to be stuck in a feedback loop, where the young male, first-weekend audience is considered the ultimate prize, and in turn many movies (e.g., Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen) are created with them in mind. Female-oriented successes are still considered aberrations. Who do you think were the majority of people that saw Titanic again, and again, again? All the girls in my middle school. Twilight? Check. Sex and the City? Check. Today, Women & Hollywood posted the news that The Proposal (directed by a woman) had quietly surpassed the theatrical gross of Sex and the City, which many had touted as the movie that proved women existed at the box office. It's clear to me that conventional wisdom about female moviegoers contains some serious errors. Perhaps some female directors could help the studios get back on track.