Female-led action movies are dying as a genre. This is clear after watching the recent box office failure of “Furiosa” its opening weekend. Its box office only got worse the following weeks, despite the massive hype for the prequel follow-up to the beloved “Mad Max: Fury Road.”
It’s hard to argue that this isn’t part of a trend. While “Captain Marvel” made $1 billion at the box office, later female-led action movies have increasingly underperformed or bombed, from “Charlie’s Angels” (2019) to “Black Widow,” to “Birds of Prey,” to “The Marvels,” and now “Furiosa,” it’s hard to deny there is a common thread in these female-led action films. Particularly as other films with weak openings out around the same time, such as “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” “Garfield,” and “IF,” managed to have much better holds in their later weeks. Likewise, “Bad Boys 4,” a male-led action movie with a much lower critic score and positive word of mouth, had a much higher box office only weeks later.
But it hasn’t always been this way. Female-led action films have traditionally done quite well. “Terminator,” “Alien,” “Aliens,” “Tomb Raider,” the original “Charlie’s Angels,” “Wonder Woman,” and “The Hunger Games,” have all been hits with audiences.
The good news is we know why this is happening, which means there are relatively simple solutions. Whether Hollywood will do it is another matter entirely.
Boy Movies vs. Girl Movies
Men have always been the majority audience for female-led action films. While
