Latest news with #womenDirectors
Yahoo
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Catherine Hardwicke launched Twilight and was rewarded with a mini cupcake
Catherine Hardwicke has done an enormous amount for Hollywood. She launched the massively successful Twilight film franchise, not to mention the lauded careers of both Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart. She also gave a whole cadre of other A-listers some of their earliest work, including Oscar Isaac (The Nativity Story), Jeremy Renner (Lords Of Dogtown), and Evan Rachel Wood (Thirteen). She introduced the world to vampire baseball and even wrote one of the greatest lines of all time, at least in this writer's opinion: 'You better hold on tight, spider-monkey.' And yet, for all her contributions, she was rewarded by Twilight producer Summit Entertainment with… a mini cupcake. Not even a full-sized treat! In a recent interview with The Guardian, the director said she knew successful male directors were often gifted 'a car, or a three-picture deal, or [getting] to do basically whatever you want' by the studio after a box office success on Twilight's magnitude. (The original film made over $400 million worldwide.) Hardwicke, however, remembers that she 'walked into a room with all these gifts, and everybody was congratulating the studio, and they gave me a box… I opened it up, and it was a mini cupcake.' The revelation that the film's success wouldn't automatically snowball into more opportunities was 'an earth-shattering reality right away,' she reflected. 'No, people aren't going to hire more women directors. They're not going to give you the next job and let you do something great.' She was replaced by male directors for the remainder of the franchise. Still, Hardwicke pressed on and continued to make films that are personally meaningful to her. She's currently in post-production on her latest project, Street Smart, which she describes as 'a kind of homeless The Breakfast Club' starring Yara Shahidi, Isabelle Fuhrman, Michael Cimino, and a group of unknowns with 'big hearts and compassion for others; otherwise, they would be trying to work on a superhero film.' In addition to serving as a 'love letter to Venice' (the California neighborhood), the film is also a rebuke of Donald Trump's politics. 'Even though we wrote it before he got elected, Street Smart is directly addressing some of [these] issues,' Hardwicke said. 'It's telling a compelling story that shows people who do not look like Donald Trump, or think like him.' Hopefully, this film will lead to more opportunities for the director; or, if nothing else, at least a full-size dessert. More from A.V. Club Superman gets a big, blue reboot that supercharges a beleaguered genre Spoiler Space: Jurassic World Rebirth once again makes dinosaurs everyone's problem Now any old grifter can buy Fyre Festival on eBay
Malay Mail
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Malay Mail
Nicole Kidman calls out scarcity of female directors as she's honoured at Cannes
CANNES, May 19 — Australian megastar Nicole Kidman lamented Sunday the 'incredibly low' number of hit films made by women directors, and revealed that she often wakes up at 3.00am to do her own personal writing. Despite her efforts backing and mentoring women-led projects, the number of women-made films among the highest-grossing films 'is incredibly low', she said as she received a Kering Women In Motion award at the Cannes film festival. Kidman pledged in 2017 to work with a woman director at least once every 18 months, saying then that there was 'such a disparity in terms of the choices'. 'You would go, 'OK, could a woman direct this?' There just wasn't a number of names that you could consider,' she said. The Oscar-winning actor confirmed that she had worked with 27 female directors since her pledge eight years ago. Only seven of the 22 films in the main competition in Cannes this year are directed by women. But Kidman heaped praise on an early critics' favourite, Mascha Schilinski's The Sound of Falling, a German-language drama about multi-generational trauma among women on a farm. 'To have 'Sound of Falling' heard on the world stage, that's fantastic,' she said. Although she ruled out writing her own script, she did reveal that she frequently wakes up during the night to write. 'It's a very ripe time for things to happen because you're in that slightly removed state from reality,' she said. 'I wake up and I'll write something, be it a dream, be it something that's circulating in my mind.' — AFP
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Nicole Kidman laments 'incredibly low' number of women-directed films
Australian megastar Nicole Kidman lamented Sunday the "incredibly low" number of hit films made by women directors, and revealed that she often wakes up at 3:00 am to do her own personal writing. Despite her efforts backing and mentoring women-led projects, the number of women-made films among the highest-grossing films "is incredibly low", she said as she received a Kering Women In Motion award at the Cannes film festival. Kidman pledged in 2017 to work with a woman director at least once every 18 months, saying then that there was "such a disparity in terms of the choices". "You would go, 'OK, could a woman direct this?' There just wasn't a number of names that you could consider," she said. The Oscar-winning actor confirmed that she had worked with 27 female directors since her pledge eight years ago. Only seven of the 22 films in the main competition in Cannes this year are directed by women. But Kidman heaped praise on an early critics' favourite, Mascha Schilinski's "The Sound of Falling", a German-language drama about multi-generational trauma among women on a farm. "To have 'Sound of Falling' heard on the world stage, that's fantastic," she said. Although she ruled out writing her own script, she did reveal that she frequently wakes up during the night to write. "It's a very ripe time for things to happen because you're in that slightly removed state from reality," she said. "I wake up and I'll write something, be it a dream, be it something that's circulating in my mind." adp/fg/jj
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Nicole Kidman laments 'incredibly low' number of women-directed films
Australian megastar Nicole Kidman lamented Sunday the "incredibly low" number of hit films made by women directors, and revealed that she often wakes up at 3:00 am to do her own personal writing. Despite her efforts backing and mentoring women-led projects, the number of women-made films among the highest-grossing films "is incredibly low", she said as she received a Kering Women In Motion award at the Cannes film festival. Kidman pledged in 2017 to work with a woman director at least once every 18 months, saying then that there was "such a disparity in terms of the choices". "You would go, 'OK, could a woman direct this?' There just wasn't a number of names that you could consider," she said. The Oscar-winning actor confirmed that she had worked with 27 female directors since her pledge eight years ago. Only seven of the 22 films in the main competition in Cannes this year are directed by women. But Kidman heaped praise on an early critics' favourite, Mascha Schilinski's "The Sound of Falling", a German-language drama about multi-generational trauma among women on a farm. "To have 'Sound of Falling' heard on the world stage, that's fantastic," she said. Although she ruled out writing her own script, she did reveal that she frequently wakes up during the night to write. "It's a very ripe time for things to happen because you're in that slightly removed state from reality," she said. "I wake up and I'll write something, be it a dream, be it something that's circulating in my mind." adp/fg/jj
