The consolidation of power into fewer hands (with most of those being male) is not without consequences. Individuals who have greenlight power not only decide which stories get told, but at what budget, and who gets hired. Women are still horribly underrepresented as directors. Last year, according to the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, the proportion of women working as directors on the 100 top-grossing movies of the year hit a seven-year low, with only nine women out of 111 working as directors on those films. Dr. Stacy L. Smith and Dr. Katherine Pieper, the authors of the initiative, called it a “complete reversal of any progress that was achieved behind the camera over the last few years.”
Even though women are directing independent movies outside of those top 100 of the year (48% of the features in the 2026 Sundance lineup were directed by women), they aren’t directing the big-budget movies that only studios can make. Having more female executives at the top gives more opportunity to female storytellers. “[Women in Film’s] research shows that when women are in leadership positions, they hire more women,” says Schaffer. “Women executives in decision-making roles open doors for the next generation. When those seats disappear, so do the opportunities.”
Back in 2015, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy told The Guardian that “there’s nothing we’d like more than to find a female director for Star Wars.” It wasn’t until 2023 when two-time Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy was hired to helm a spin-off about Daisy Ridley’s character, Rey. But the project has languished in development. Kennedy gave up her 14-year post earlier this year, handing over the reins to Dave Filoni and Lynwen Brennan.
And having women leading studios isn’t just about giving more women a chance to work on a $200 million movie, or making female-centered stories. It’s about a more inclusive group of decision makers who can therefore make movies that reach more diverse audiences. Hollywood is supposed to be the land of endless stories and possibilities, but without a more inclusive group of people deciding which stories get told, those possibilities will keep shrinking to whatever a narrow few already believe audiences want to see. “I am reduced to counting which of the male studio heads have daughters to understand whether they’ll see value in female-driven propositions they don’t endemically understand,” says the producer of this new landscape.
Hollywood has a history of pushing women out of the executive suite, only to watch them thrive elsewhere. After Pascal was fired as co-chairman of Sony, she went on to become a top producer behind films like Little Women, Challengers, Project Hail Mary, and Greta Gerwig’s next movie, Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew. Perhaps Bajaria, Abdy, and Holland will have just as fruitful next chapters.
The question is whether the industry will build the pipeline to replace them, or if the next generation of women who might have run a studio will simply never get the chance. “In truth, I worry more for the younger folks trying to make their mark in the business than I do about those of us who have stayed in the game for decades,” says Jacobson. “The fewer jobs there are, the less people want to give up their spot or fear it will be taken and the fewer opportunities there are for the next generation to rise and get their chance.”
