More women behind the camera means more money at the box office

By now, all of us know the Bechdel test inside and out. The Bechdel test asks if a fiction film features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. Using this test, FiveThirtyEight analyzed thousands of films to determine whether the presence (and importance) of women had an effect on a film's box office. Here is part of their analysis:

We did a statistical analysis of films to test two claims: first, that films that pass the Bechdel test — featuring women in stronger roles — see a lower return on investment, and second, that they see lower gross profits. We found no evidence to support either claim.

On the first test, we ran a regression to find out if passing the Bechdel test corresponded to lower return on investment. Controlling for the movie’s budget, which has a negative and significant relationship to a film’s return on investment, passing the Bechdel test had no effect on the film’s return on investment. In other words, adding women to a film’s cast didn’t hurt its investors’ returns, contrary to what Hollywood investors seem to believe.

The total median gross return on investment for a film that passed the Bechdel test was $2.68 for each dollar spent. The total median gross return on investment for films that failed was only $2.45 for each dollar spent.

So why is it that movies that pass the Bechdel test have a better return-on-investment, but filmmakers of these films are given less money? FiveThirtyEight also discovered that when more women were involved in the production of a film, it was more likely to have female cast members. In other words, when one gender dominates the creative process for a picture, that shows on the screen. Under-representation behind the camera results in under-representation in front of the camera.

So here's an equation for you:

More women behind the camera = more women on screen = more money made at the box office

It's a win-win situation.

You Don't Need Money to Scare the S*** Out of People

As a college student looking pursue a career in the movie industry, I have heard the same advice on countless occasions: 

"Movies? Yikes...You should probably study something more stable; like psychology, or art history." 

However, upon realizing that I'm pretty set in my decision to make films, people in the industry give me another piece of advice: 

"Start by producing horror. They're relatively cheap to make, and they have a built in audience." 

I decided to do my own research on the topic. How small of a budget can horror films have and still make a profit? Does a bigger budget necessarily guarantee a better movie? I started by comparing two horror films with very different budgets.

This is the trailer for the 2010 thriller, The Wolfman directed by Joe Johnston. It cost $150,000,000 to produce.

This is the trailer for the 1978 horror film, Halloween, directed by John Carpenter. The independent film had the minuscule budget of $325,000.

When looking exclusively at box office sales, The Wolfman outperformed Halloween; grossing a whopping $139,789,765 as opposed to Halloween's $70,000,000. Despite this, in the end, The Wolfman lost $10,210,235 while Carpenter's Halloween made $69,675,000. This comparison isn't the only example of low budget horror films ultimately earning more money than bigger budget productions.

Director Tobe Hooper's 1974 film, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is my all-time favorite example of the little budget guys coming out on top. The thriller cost under $140,000 to produce and ended up grossing $26,000,000. Not bad Tobe. Not bad. 

For those who haven't seen it:

Horror movies will *almost always sell tickets.

 ( *I use the word "almost" due to the failure of the horror film Playback which earned exactly $265 at the box office in 2012.)

Horror films will always sell tickets, but they'll never be blockbusters. Some people just don't like scary movies. They never will. Luckily, there will always be those high school couples and adrenaline junkies that will go out and see anything classified as a horror film. Keeping this in mind, it doesn't economically make sense to spend millions upon millions of dollars to produce a genre of movie that targets a relatively small (although stable) population.

So in the end, the second piece of advice is correct. Scary movies are a great place to start when you want to break into the industry but don't have any money. Still, if horror isn't your thing, there's always porn.