Female Directors Power List: See Which Filmmakers Grossed Over $100 Million
Adjusted domestic grosses over $100 million, by director (continued)
Jennifer Lee (1)
Top Movie: Frozen ($433.5)
An unusual case of an animated film writer (“Wreck-It Ralph,” “Zootopia”) moving into directing. She also wrote the story for “Frozen” and is in production on its sequel.
Kathryn Bigelow (1)
Top Movie: Zero Dark Thirty ($106.6)
The most honored American female director actually has not been a leader in box-office success, despite a 35-year career and nine features that focus on dramas and genre-related projects. Her domestic total, adjusted, is only a little more than $300 million, nearly two thirds from “Zero Dark Thirty” and the original “Point Break” ($90.7 million). “The Hurt Locker” was a specialized release with modest crossover that did not get an awards boost in theaters. Nearly half of the revenues from her films have been foreign.
Catherine Hardwicke (1)
Top Movie: Twilight ($235.9)
It was considered a breakthrough when Hardwicke was entrusted by Lionsgate to helm the initial entry of their young-adult series “Twilight” after acclaim for the indie feature “Thirteen” and two studio features. Controversially, despite its huge success, she was not asked to return — demanding more time to prepare a sequel — and men directed the remaining four entries.
“Twilight” is two thirds of her career gross, with “Red Riding Hood” and “The Nativity Story” combined adjusted grossing $92 million.
Elizabeth Banks (1)
Top Movie: Pitch Perfect 2 ($191.5)
Banks went from acting and co-producing “Pitch Perfect” to helming the second. It tripled the gross, with a third entry (to be directed by a woman, Tri Sie, who did “Step Up All In.”) Banks is now slated to direct an upcoming reboot of “Charlie’s Angels.”
Phyllida Lloyd (1)
Top Movie: Mamma Mia! ($177.5)
Veteran London theater director Lloyd debuted with the film version of “Mamma Mia!” in 2008. It remains the biggest hit ever for a live-action film with a female director, with adjusted gross somewhere over $700 million worldwide. She then directed Meryl Streep to her second Best Actress win for “The Iron Lady,” but otherwise had mostly kept to the stage. She will not direct “Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again,” with Ol Parker (“The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”) set.
Sam Taylor-Johnson (1)
Top Movie: Fifty Shades of Grey ($180.8)
Plucked from the indie world after her John Lennon biopic “Nowhere Boy” for the first of the three “Grey” adaptations (she was replaced by James Foley for the final two), Taylor-Johnson now is overseeing Netflix’s “Gypsy” thriller series with Naomi Watts. Her “Grey” approached the $600 million worldwide mark.
Mimi Leder (1)
Top Movie: Deep Impact ($264.8)
Leder was a mainstay on the Dreamworks-produced TV series “ER,” and directed “The Peacemaker,” their first feature. Her big success was “Deep Impact,” one of the most expensive live-action, female-directed studio releases ever. “Pay It Forward” was only a minor success, and other than a direct-to-DVD Morgan Freeman film in 2009, she’s done most of her work in TV. She has been part of the “Shameless” team and now is wearing multiple hats in the current Netflix sensation “The Leftovers.”
Anne Fletcher (1)
Top Movie: The Proposal ($194.2)
Fletcher came close to the adjusted $100 million level with “Step Up” and “27 Dresses” when she broke through with”The Proposal” in 2009. Her follow ups were “The Guilt Trip” and “Hot Pursuit.” Of note: though the rap on female directed projects is that rom-coms don’t sell overseas, internationally “The Proposal” nearly matched its domestic take.
Sharon Maguire (1)
Top Movie: Bridget Jones’s Diary ($111.7)
Maguire has only three features to her credit, two of them “Diary” entries. (The middle one was directed by Beeban Kidron, making this the only franchise with women-only directors). Her other film, the romantic thriller “Incendiary” with Michelle Williams, was minimally released after its Sundance premiere. Her two “Jones” films (much bigger overseas) alone total over $600 million worldwide.
