Lies, damn lies and statistics, part??
Someone who I've never met in person, but admire and consider a "friend" (in the online vernacular) posted a link to an interesting statistical analysis. It shows that women are even more unrepresented in the pool of people who are selling spec scripts. You can read that excellent piece here: http://t.co/bpwFhFtnEk
You know how I am about numbers. I did some research on my own and found out a few more interesting things that might put those numbers into an even more startling perspective. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics crunches a whole lot of numbers. They tell us that the following was true of the U.S. labor force as an average, during 2011:
Of the total available population of men 16 years and older, 70.5% of them were in the labor force (combines employed and seeking employment). For women, that figure is only 58.1%. Now that disparity makes sense if we assume that in opposite-gender two parent households where only one parent is working outside the home, it is still more likely that person is the man. But what is really interesting is that in 1999, it was 60.0%. That was the peak year. The 2011 figure was a 0.5% reduction from the 2010 figure, for women.
However, it is also worth noting that in 2011 the unemployment rate was 8.5% for women in the labor force, compared with 9.4% for men. Do we assume that women are having an easier time finding work, when they seek it? That's what the numbers seem to indicate but that is a dangerous conclusion. It could be that unemployment is lower in specific industries where women are more likely to work than men. It could be that all of these numbers are skewed by the fact they don't include those who were unemployed and stopped seeking work. There isn't enough data to make a good conclusion about this particular disparity.
Women are more likely to be enrolled in college than men, according to the 2011 numbers (72% women versus 65% men). Women are also more likely to be working at more than one job (5.3% of working women versus 4.6% of working men).
What does this all mean? First off, the fact that 1 of 2 bestselling books, versus 1 of 7 working writers in television, versus 1 of 8 spec scripts sold is interesting, but it lacks a little context. We don't know how may writers are out there trying to publish novels, versus seeking work as a television writer, versus trying to sell spec scripts in total, let alone broken down by gender. We also can't use best-selling novels as a benchmark for working TV writers and sales of spec scripts because they are measures of different things. One is based on sales of books, but to the population as a whole. One is based on an employment statistic in a specific industry that we know to be male-centric in every measure of employment. And the third is based on sales of spec scripts to a highly limited market of studios and producers, who we also know to be male-centric. I won't even get into which genre of spec script might be selling better than another, versus how much more likely it is that spec scripts in that genre were written by one gender over another.
The numbers in this analysis that hold real validity are in the first .jpg. You can definitely conclude from this data that women are selling fewer spec scripts than men as a trend over the last two decades or so. That's troubling on a number of fronts.
We know that Hollywood and the film industry has a very strong male bias in terms of access, success and choices. How many of the six major studios are headed by women? How many of the "minors"? Of the total pool of directors who can get a film greenlit simply be being attached to the project are men, versus women? How many actresses are in the $20 million salary club, versus actors? Like it or not the movie industry is still pretty much a "boy's club" and it doesn't look like that's going to change a lot in the short-term.
The "powers that be" argue that box office results dictate that how they are making these choices is correct and until they start having worsening results, these trends should continue. Women represent roughly half of the potential audience and films that are "targeted" at this population segment continue to be more and more absent from the projects being looked at.
This seems to be part of another disturbing trend. Making fewer movies with bigger budgets. I was actually pleased to see that the sale of spec scripts took an upward turn in 2011 and 2012 over 2009 and 2010. Producers and studios are being short-sighted in my opinion. "Iron Man 3" is now over the $400 million mark domestically and over $1.2 billion worldwide. Let's break those numbers down for a minute.
Depending on the structure of the deal, studios will earn between 45% and 60% of worlwide box office receipts (55% domestically is a pretty good number). 55% of $1.2 billion is $615 million.
The production budget was roughly $200 million. I don't have a good number of what they spent on marketing worldwide, but we'll ignore that for the moment. So if the film continues to perform well, without counting future Blu-Ray and DVD sales, they will get back 4 or 5 times their initial investment. That's a pretty good return, and in raw dollars it's between $800 million and $1 billion in profit based solely on production costs. I'm sure you'd love to get 4 or 5 times earnings on the money in your bank account over a three to four year period. I would.
Now let's look at "The Purge". It has earned $68 million at the box office on a production budget of $3 million. That means that the profit for this film is $37.3 million that far. If it gets to a total profit of $42 million that's 14 times the original investment (yes, I know we are working strictly on production budgets and that acquisition costs drive numbers up, I'm trying to make a specific point).
Two final examples to drive the point home. "End of Watch" grossed $48 million on a budget of $7 million. That's a profit of $26.4 million which is nearly 4 times the production budget.
"Prometheus" grossed $403 million worldwide on a production budget of $130 million. That's a profit of $221.65 million. Less than 2 times return on production budget.
The issue here is risk. It relates both to the choices made by studios and producers on which spec scripts to buy and ultimately produce, and which movies will make money in the end. Which would you rather do? Make 1 "Ironman 3" and earn a 4 or 5 times profit on a huge investment, or make 40 films like "The Purge" and "End of Watch" where you may hit a major home run, or at least do just as well as the blockbusters you're risking hundreds of millions on. Yes, there are the "Iron Man 3" and other mega-hits, but there are also the "Battleship" and the "John Carter" misses.
It takes a lot of the mega-hits to make up for one or two of the misses when your production budgets are over $100 million. It takes nowhere near as many big hits at the box office when your production budgets are under $30 million to make up for the misses. But now Hollywood has become a high-limit blackjack table where they will only bet big, because they think that's the only way to win big.
That is why I think this "boy's club" is much more likely to bet on a spec script written by a man than by a woman. Risk. Potential for big money. Look at the movies in the 2012 top 25 at the box office. How many can you find where the source material, be it original or adapted screenplay; was written by a woman?
It's a real catch-22. Women will only start selling more spec scripts when more of what they've already sold has translated into big profits, and that can only happen if more members of the boy's club will take a chance on a woman's spec script.
Just some random thoughts on an interesting analysis. Sorry if I got long-winded.
You know how I am about numbers. I did some research on my own and found out a few more interesting things that might put those numbers into an even more startling perspective. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics crunches a whole lot of numbers. They tell us that the following was true of the U.S. labor force as an average, during 2011:
Of the total available population of men 16 years and older, 70.5% of them were in the labor force (combines employed and seeking employment). For women, that figure is only 58.1%. Now that disparity makes sense if we assume that in opposite-gender two parent households where only one parent is working outside the home, it is still more likely that person is the man. But what is really interesting is that in 1999, it was 60.0%. That was the peak year. The 2011 figure was a 0.5% reduction from the 2010 figure, for women.
However, it is also worth noting that in 2011 the unemployment rate was 8.5% for women in the labor force, compared with 9.4% for men. Do we assume that women are having an easier time finding work, when they seek it? That's what the numbers seem to indicate but that is a dangerous conclusion. It could be that unemployment is lower in specific industries where women are more likely to work than men. It could be that all of these numbers are skewed by the fact they don't include those who were unemployed and stopped seeking work. There isn't enough data to make a good conclusion about this particular disparity.
Women are more likely to be enrolled in college than men, according to the 2011 numbers (72% women versus 65% men). Women are also more likely to be working at more than one job (5.3% of working women versus 4.6% of working men).
What does this all mean? First off, the fact that 1 of 2 bestselling books, versus 1 of 7 working writers in television, versus 1 of 8 spec scripts sold is interesting, but it lacks a little context. We don't know how may writers are out there trying to publish novels, versus seeking work as a television writer, versus trying to sell spec scripts in total, let alone broken down by gender. We also can't use best-selling novels as a benchmark for working TV writers and sales of spec scripts because they are measures of different things. One is based on sales of books, but to the population as a whole. One is based on an employment statistic in a specific industry that we know to be male-centric in every measure of employment. And the third is based on sales of spec scripts to a highly limited market of studios and producers, who we also know to be male-centric. I won't even get into which genre of spec script might be selling better than another, versus how much more likely it is that spec scripts in that genre were written by one gender over another.
The numbers in this analysis that hold real validity are in the first .jpg. You can definitely conclude from this data that women are selling fewer spec scripts than men as a trend over the last two decades or so. That's troubling on a number of fronts.
We know that Hollywood and the film industry has a very strong male bias in terms of access, success and choices. How many of the six major studios are headed by women? How many of the "minors"? Of the total pool of directors who can get a film greenlit simply be being attached to the project are men, versus women? How many actresses are in the $20 million salary club, versus actors? Like it or not the movie industry is still pretty much a "boy's club" and it doesn't look like that's going to change a lot in the short-term.
The "powers that be" argue that box office results dictate that how they are making these choices is correct and until they start having worsening results, these trends should continue. Women represent roughly half of the potential audience and films that are "targeted" at this population segment continue to be more and more absent from the projects being looked at.
This seems to be part of another disturbing trend. Making fewer movies with bigger budgets. I was actually pleased to see that the sale of spec scripts took an upward turn in 2011 and 2012 over 2009 and 2010. Producers and studios are being short-sighted in my opinion. "Iron Man 3" is now over the $400 million mark domestically and over $1.2 billion worldwide. Let's break those numbers down for a minute.
Depending on the structure of the deal, studios will earn between 45% and 60% of worlwide box office receipts (55% domestically is a pretty good number). 55% of $1.2 billion is $615 million.
The production budget was roughly $200 million. I don't have a good number of what they spent on marketing worldwide, but we'll ignore that for the moment. So if the film continues to perform well, without counting future Blu-Ray and DVD sales, they will get back 4 or 5 times their initial investment. That's a pretty good return, and in raw dollars it's between $800 million and $1 billion in profit based solely on production costs. I'm sure you'd love to get 4 or 5 times earnings on the money in your bank account over a three to four year period. I would.
Now let's look at "The Purge". It has earned $68 million at the box office on a production budget of $3 million. That means that the profit for this film is $37.3 million that far. If it gets to a total profit of $42 million that's 14 times the original investment (yes, I know we are working strictly on production budgets and that acquisition costs drive numbers up, I'm trying to make a specific point).
Two final examples to drive the point home. "End of Watch" grossed $48 million on a budget of $7 million. That's a profit of $26.4 million which is nearly 4 times the production budget.
"Prometheus" grossed $403 million worldwide on a production budget of $130 million. That's a profit of $221.65 million. Less than 2 times return on production budget.
The issue here is risk. It relates both to the choices made by studios and producers on which spec scripts to buy and ultimately produce, and which movies will make money in the end. Which would you rather do? Make 1 "Ironman 3" and earn a 4 or 5 times profit on a huge investment, or make 40 films like "The Purge" and "End of Watch" where you may hit a major home run, or at least do just as well as the blockbusters you're risking hundreds of millions on. Yes, there are the "Iron Man 3" and other mega-hits, but there are also the "Battleship" and the "John Carter" misses.
It takes a lot of the mega-hits to make up for one or two of the misses when your production budgets are over $100 million. It takes nowhere near as many big hits at the box office when your production budgets are under $30 million to make up for the misses. But now Hollywood has become a high-limit blackjack table where they will only bet big, because they think that's the only way to win big.
That is why I think this "boy's club" is much more likely to bet on a spec script written by a man than by a woman. Risk. Potential for big money. Look at the movies in the 2012 top 25 at the box office. How many can you find where the source material, be it original or adapted screenplay; was written by a woman?
It's a real catch-22. Women will only start selling more spec scripts when more of what they've already sold has translated into big profits, and that can only happen if more members of the boy's club will take a chance on a woman's spec script.
Just some random thoughts on an interesting analysis. Sorry if I got long-winded.
posted by me at 2:53 PM
<< Home