Casting Call: Hollywood Needs More Women
Summer is the perfect time for a night out at the cinema, but maybe you've noticed something missing at the movies: women.
Women make up a minority of movie creators: 7 percent of directors, 13 percent of writers and 20 percent of producers; that's nearly five men for every woman working behind the scenes.
Out of last year's biggest movies, 28 percent of speaking characters were female. That's down from a third just five years ago, according to the Annenberg School at the University of Southern California.
"Just based off last few movies I've seen, they've all been male-centric like World War Z and Man of Steel and This Is The End," says 20-year-old moviegoer Melissa Hattab. "I know that I love going to the movies and I like seeing women I can relate to."
That's not to say no women are making and having lead roles in films, recent examples include Sofia Coppola's Bling Ring and The Heat, which opened this weekend and stars Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock. The Heat was also written by a woman, Katie Dippold.
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