On October 5th Nikki Finke over at her blog Deadline Hollywood stated that Warner Bros president of production Jeff Robinov was heard saying, “We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead,” after the recent failures of The Reaping, The Invasion and The Brave One. Finke’s statement is being reported via a few third-party individuals, “three different producers” as she puts it, which leads me to doubt the validity of the quote. I also think it is odd that someone would publish such a statement without even a line in her article saying she tried to reach Robinov for comment but received none, because I am sure he would have denied it vehemently, which he has actually now done.
Over at Variety Anne Thompson has posted an article that doesn’t mention Finke specifically, but does say “Robinov insists he is moving forward with several movies with women in the lead. Indeed, he is offended by rumors of his cinematic misogyny.” Unfortunately the films he mentions don’t exactly make for excellent examples:
- Nights in Rodanthe with Diane Lane and Richard Gere
- Spring Breakdown with an ensemble of ladies including Amy Poehler, Parker Posey, Amber Tamblyn and Kristin Cavallari
- Fool’s Gold with Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey
- The superhero ensemble Watchmen, which he says has Silk Spectre playing a large part
- Speed Racer and Get Smart which Thompson says have female co-stars figuring in larger roles
Outside of Spring Breakdown all of these examples feature women in co-starring roles, not the lead roles Kidman, Swank and Foster played in the films that led to this alleged comment. On top of that, Silk Spectre gets raped and exploited in Watchmen leading me to think it is far from an empowering female role.
While I have to assume such a blanket statement as, “We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead,” must have been taken out of context, the examples given say otherwise.
If there is any question as to why The Reaping, The Invasion and The Brave One failed it is because they are all three terrible movies. I am reviewing The Reaping HD DVD right now and am shocked they were even able to come up with a story as ridiculous as this, let alone get a producer to back it. Oddly enough, all three of the mentioned films were produced by Joel Silver who seems to have his hands far too deep into each of his productions, so much so that The Invasion actually underwent reshoots with a different director. Gotta wonder if that is part of the reason both Kidman and co-star Daniel Craig refused to promote the film.
I can only believe the future of women over at WB is still in the cards, but perhaps they should consider coming up with better scripts for their leading ladies.
KEEP AN EYE OUT: Finke is already teasing a new article titled “The Real Facts Behind Jeff Robinov’s ‘Denial'”. I just wonder if she will have real quotes from named individuals this time.
