CINEMATICAL.COM - WHY TWILIGHT IS HISTORIC FOR WOMEN FILMMAKERS

Cinematical explains why Twilight’s success is historical for women filmmakers:(warning: foul language)

It’s being mentioned in a few of the box office reports showing up online, but we here at Cinematical felt it deserved its own post. In case you haven’t noticed, Twilight’s $70.5 million amounts to the best opening weekend for a female director ever. Not only did she break Mimi Leder’s (Deep Impact) record of $41.1 million, but Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke destroyed it — bringing her all the way up to the 29th best opening weekend in history (according to Box Office Mojo), slightly beating — wait for it — Michael Bay’s Transformers by roughly $50 thousand on 600 less screens. I think this proved giant CENSORED robots are no match for millions of screaming girls.

But this isn’t the only record Catherine Hardwicke could break. Our friends over at Over Thinking It pointed out that should Twilight gross more than $187 million domestic, the film will crack the top 100 grossing movies of all time (domestic) list. And if that happens, Hardwicke will become the first female live action American director to crack the holy top 100.

While this is a great achievement for Hardwicke and women filmmakers, however, there’s this quote from a recent study conducted by Dr. Martha Lauzen of San Diego State University (via OTI): “Women accounted for 6% of directors in 2007, a decline of one percentage point since 2006. This figure is almost half the percentage of women directors working in 2000 when women accounted for 11% of all directors.” Not good. Hopefully Hardwicke’s fantastic opening will help open some eyes …

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Catherine is paving the way for female filmmakers. Go Catherine! What an unbelievable honor to have such success, not that she didn’t earn it.
I hope that because of Twilight’s success, she will be given more money and leeway with New Moon. What do you think of Catherine’s success with Twilight? Do you agree that it’s historic for women? How might it benefit other female filmmakers in the future?