The 2010s was a huge decade for cinema. Tons of revolutionary, huge movies came out during this period of time, including the entire Avengers series, all of which earned well over a billion dollars. However, when you look over the top-grossing films of the past decade, many of them either star women or feature women in hugely prominent roles. These films, perhaps cynically, captured the public's thirst for female-led blockbusters in order to gain robust success.
Not every one of these films proved to be successful, but more often than not, the decades' biggest hits either put women front and center or featured an ensemble cast with multiple prominent ladies. What this can tell us is that this decade is the one that provided one key lesson: women want to see themselves in movies and will pay money for it.
A Brief Disclaimer
It is important to note that not every film that starred a woman was necessarily a hit. One of the most noteworthy examples of this was the reboot of Ghostbusters, which starred an all-female cast. The film became a huge subject of controversy upon release, but, ultimately, proved to be a relatively harmless reboot. More recently, Charlie's Angels (still in its theatrical run) has been struggling at the box office, as has Terminator: Dark Fate. While their final box office totals have yet to be counted, the future is looking dark for both films.
That is also not to say that every film starring a woman became an overwhelming sensation. Ocean's 8 was a financial success upon release, bringing in $297.7 million against a $70 million budget. This means it turned in a profit, though it didn't necessarily make it a smash hit.
And while women were more prominent in film this year, it doesn't mean all films that did succeed this year necessarily needed women front-and-center. Once more, we return to the billion-dollar club, where Joker brought in over a billion dollars. The film rightfully received critical acclaim, but no critic praised the film for its lackluster female representation. The point of this is that not every successful film needed women to draw audiences in. However, many films did find success capitalizing on its female demographic.
The Billion Dollar Club
While Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the most prominent example of this, being the fourth highest-grossing film of all time, movies like Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Incredibles 2, Frozen, Captain Marvel, Finding Dory, Alice in Wonderland, and Beauty and the Beast all grossed over one billion dollars this decade.
Of course, it's of note that earning a billion dollars is not a measure of writing quality. Many films that earned a billion dollars have been met with critical rejection rather than acclaim. Many can also argue that the reason these films grossed so much is due to the films simply being part of a greater franchise. After all, Captain Marvel was the last film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe before Avengers: Endgame. And Star Wars films have grossed consistently well so far (except for Solo: A Star Wars Story, which, ironically, is the only Star Wars film released this decade with a male lead). While Beauty and the Beast is a remake of one of the most widely beloved animated films of all time.
On top of that, every film in the Avengers franchise featured women in prominent roles as part of their ensemble casts. None of these films starred women, per se, but they featured women as co-leads. The same is true for Aquaman, which presented Mera almost as a secondary-protagonist.
Consistent Reliability
Of course, not every film that broke records needed to cross the billion-dollar threshold. Many films grossed well below one billion but still proved incredibly profitable for studios. Even outside of Disney's catalog, all of which have a built-in audience, films starring women did phenomenal this decade.
The early 2010s saw the height of the young adult adaptation craze, which brought audiences The Hunger Games series and Twilight Saga which collectively earned a great deal of money. Wonder Woman and Suicide Squad both featured female leads and both did incredible at the box office. Comedies like Bridesmaids and The Heat brought in a great deal of money against limited budgets. Even in regards to the Oscar-bait films, movies like Lady Bird and The Shape of Water did quite well at the box office.
But if anyone could walk away with their heads held high, it is the horror genre, whose female-lead films consistently did brilliantly. Halloween, Us, IT, It Follows, and Hereditary all at the very least quadrupled their budgets at the box office. Arguably, however, the reigning queen of female leads in horror is The Conjuring and its ever-growing cinematic universe. While The Conjuring, which featured Vera Farmiga, brought in over $319 million against a $20 million budget, the series that spawned from it, each film of which starred women, brought in a combined box office gross of $1.9 billion against a combined budget of $139.5 million.
So What Does This Mean Going Forward?
It is easy to take away the wrong message from these results. It is easy for someone to read the statistics and just write it off as a coincidence. It's easy to point to the big hitters and say "Oh, this succeeded because of Disney!" It's easy to hear "movies starring women make money," and jump to the superhero genre, but the reality is this is far more wide-spread across the board.
But then there comes the side-effect. Every Charlie's Angels is proof that the "trend" is over, which of course indicates that this is just a trend and that it won't last. But this trend has been mounting for some time now. Titanic was for awhile the highest-grossing film of all time. When adjusted for inflation, Gone with the Wind is the highest-grossing movie. Both feature women in the lead. Yet when people discuss movies featuring women, they are never brought up in conversation because they are commonly agreed upon masterpieces.
It's easy to dismiss what is apparent now as just "a trend." This is a wave, one that has started since the dawn of cinema and will continue long into the future. Women want to see themselves on screen, and that will be a draw. Of course, it's also vital to remember that strong concepts are also important. Perhaps the lesson we can learn from the all-female Ghostbusters isn't that a film starring women will flop, but rather not to pour extra money into a concept audiences just aren't interested in.