For three decades, Hollywood has quietly accumulated evidence that women screenwriters generate greater returns on investment than their male-only counterparts — yet the studios controlling the largest budgets have responded not with opportunity, but with deeper entrenchment. A sweeping analysis of nearly 200,000 films reveals an industry that systematically contradicts its own financial logic, raising a question older than cinema itself: when familiar power structures and hard data collide, which one wins?
Women screenwriters deliver higher profits, yet studios lavish budgets on male filmmakers
Studios had financial evidence that women screenwriters delivered returns, yet continued to lavish the largest budgets on male-only teams.
Mark
So the study found that female screenwriters actually make more money for studios. Why aren't studios just hiring more of them?
Mimi
That's the puzzle. The data is clear—films written by women but directed by men earned 34 percent higher median profits. Yet 88.6 percent of the highest-budget films are all-male productions.
Luke
Wait—let me make sure I have this right. The study looked at nearly 200,000 films, but only 4,200 had both budget and revenue data. That's a much smaller sample for the actual financial claims.
Mimi
True. And the researcher was careful about that—she noted the financial subset was mostly U.S. theatrical releases, so it doesn't capture the full global picture.
Mark
But even within that subset, the pattern is consistent. Female-written films outperformed male-only films at every budget tier.
Luke
They did. But the study didn't actually investigate *why* studios make these decisions. That's speculation based on other research about risk aversion.
Mimi
Right. The researcher suggested that decision-makers in uncertain industries tend to stick with what's familiar. It feels safer than taking a chance on unfamiliar talent.
Mark
So it's not that women screenwriters are actually better. It's that they're delivering better returns despite getting less money and less support.
Mimi
Exactly. Films with women in both directing and screenwriting roles achieved similar returns to male-only films but on half the budget. Imagine what they could do with equal resources.
Luke
That's an important distinction. We're not saying women are inherently better filmmakers. We're saying the industry is systematically underfunding them and they're still outperforming.
Mark
And the #MeToo movement didn't change this pattern?
Mimi
It didn't produce lasting acceleration. The rate of change remained steady but slow—from 21.5 percent of films with women in directing or screenwriting roles in 1994 to 29.4 percent in 2023.
Luke
Nearly 30 years to move from one in five to one in three. That's the real story.
Il Polso
- Films written by women outearned all-male productions by 34% in median profit — a gap that held even when budgets were equivalent, making the financial case for female screenwriters essentially undeniable.
- At the very top of the industry, where budgets and stakes are highest, the exclusion is total: across 30 years, not one woman director appeared among the top 1% of highest-budget productions.
- The contradiction sharpens with scale — female-written films in the top budget tier earned a median $113 million more in profit than male-only equivalents, yet received slightly smaller budgets to do it.
- Researchers point to risk-averse executives clinging to familiar networks and proven formulas, a self-reinforcing loop where the people who benefit from existing arrangements are the same ones making hiring decisions.
- Despite #MeToo and three decades of slow progress, fewer than one in three films in 2023 credited a woman in any creative role — suggesting that goodwill alone cannot bend the arc, and that structural reform may be the only lever left.
For three decades, Hollywood has quietly accumulated evidence that women screenwriters generate greater returns on investment than their male-only counterparts — yet the studios controlling the largest budgets have responded not with opportunity, but with deeper entrenchment. A sweeping analysis of nearly 200,000 films reveals an industry that systematically contradicts its own financial logic, raising a question older than cinema itself: when familiar power structures and hard data collide, which one wins?
The paradox at Hollywood's center is now quantified: the films that make the most money are increasingly written by women, yet the studios bankrolling the biggest productions remain almost entirely male-dominated. A new analysis of nearly 200,000 films released between 1994 and 2023, published in Frontiers in Communication, makes this contradiction impossible to ignore.
The core finding is straightforward. Movies written by women but directed only by men generated a median profit of $35.9 million — 34 percent higher than all-male productions averaging $26.8 million. The return on investment followed the same pattern: 1.1 for female-written films versus 0.88 for male-only ones. Women screenwriters were, by any financial measure, delivering more per dollar spent.
Yet funding decisions moved in the opposite direction. Among the top 1 percent of highest-budget films, 39 of 44 were made by all-male teams — and not a single woman director appeared in that tier across the entire 30-year span. The exclusion intensified as budgets climbed. At the highest levels, where the financial stakes were greatest, female-written films still outperformed: the top-budget films with women screenwriters earned a median $113 million more in profit than comparable male-only productions, despite slightly lower budgets.
Researcher Anja Huwiler of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz framed the disconnect plainly: studios were making decisions that contradicted their own financial interests. Prior research suggests that in high-uncertainty industries, decision-makers gravitate toward the familiar — established relationships and proven formulas — even when performance data points elsewhere. This tendency becomes self-reinforcing when those making hiring and budgeting decisions are the same people who benefit from existing arrangements.
Progress over three decades has been modest at best. The share of films crediting at least one woman as director or screenwriter rose from 21.5 percent in 1994 to just 29.4 percent in 2023. Even the industry reckoning prompted by #MeToo in 2017 produced no lasting acceleration. Huwiler concluded that meaningful change would likely require structural intervention — actively broadening hiring searches beyond familiar networks — rather than relying on individual goodwill. The gap between what the data shows and what the industry does remains the real story.
The paradox sits at the heart of modern Hollywood: the films that make the most money are increasingly written by women, yet the studios bankrolling the biggest productions remain almost entirely male-dominated. A new analysis of nearly 200,000 films released over three decades lays bare this contradiction with numbers that should trouble anyone making decisions about where to spend money.
The research, published in Frontiers in Communication, examined theatrical and non-theatrical releases from 1994 through 2023, pulling detailed budget and revenue data from a subset of more than 4,200 films. The findings are stark. Movies written by women but directed only by men generated a median profit of $35.9 million—34 percent higher than films with all-male creative teams, which averaged $26.8 million in profit. This gap persisted even when the budgets were comparable. The return on investment told a similar story: female-written, male-directed films achieved an ROI of 1.1, compared to 0.88 for male-only productions. In other words, women screenwriters were delivering more money per dollar spent.
Yet the industry's funding decisions moved in the opposite direction. Among the 44 films with the highest production budgets—the top 1 percent—39 were made by all-male teams. Not a single film involving a woman director reached that tier across the entire 30-year span. The disparity widened as budgets climbed: male-dominated productions accounted for 74.8 percent of the top 10 percent of budgets, 78.6 percent of the top 5 percent, and 88.6 percent of the top 1 percent. Even at the highest budget levels, where the financial stakes were greatest, women were systematically excluded from directing roles.
When researchers looked at the most expensive films written by women (but not directed by them), the profit margins became even more striking. The five such films in the top 1 percent of budgets earned a median profit roughly $113 million higher than comparable male-only productions, despite having slightly lower median budgets. In the top 5 percent, female-written films pulled in $556 million in median profit—$86 million more than male-only films. At the top 10 percent level, the gap was $134 million.
Anja Huwiler, the researcher who led the study at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, framed the disconnect plainly: studios were making decisions that contradicted their own financial interests. The question was why. Previous research suggests that decision-makers in high-uncertainty industries like film tend to gravitate toward what feels familiar and safe, even when the evidence points elsewhere. Risk-averse executives may prefer established relationships and proven formulas over unfamiliar talent, regardless of performance data. This tendency to stick with the status quo can become self-reinforcing, especially when the people making hiring and budgeting decisions are the same people who benefit from existing arrangements.
Progress has been glacially slow. The share of films crediting at least one woman as director or screenwriter crept from 21.5 percent in 1994 to 29.4 percent in 2023. After nearly three decades, fewer than one in three films included a woman in either role. Even the #MeToo movement in 2017, which prompted widespread industry reckoning, did not produce a lasting acceleration in hiring women. The rate of change remained steady but modest.
Huwiler noted that meaningful change would likely require structural intervention rather than individual goodwill. Making it normal to look beyond familiar circles—to actively seek out talent outside established networks—during staffing and budgeting decisions could shift the calculus. The study itself had limitations: the financial data came predominantly from U.S. theatrical releases, and gender was inferred from first names, which could undercount women from certain cultural backgrounds. But the core finding held: studios had financial evidence that women screenwriters delivered returns, yet continued to lavish the largest budgets on male-only teams. The gap between what the data showed and what the industry did remained the real story.
Citazioni salienti
Films with a woman screenwriter but no woman director had 34% higher median profits than films with only men in those roles, despite similar budgets.— Anja Huwiler, researcher at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
The extreme uncertainty of film financing can make familiar people and established ways of working feel safer, especially when decision-makers are risk- or loss-averse.— Anja Huwiler
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