Women protagonists in top-grossing movies at record high in 2016: Report

A new study finds that 2016 was a record year for Hollywood’s leading ladies, Variety reported Tuesday.

“Females made up 29% of protagonists in the 100 highest-grossing films of 2016, according to a new study by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University,” the entertainment trade magazine explained. “That’s a 7% rise from 2015 levels in the number of star turns by women and represents a recent historical high.”

Action flicks remain the genre least represented by women when it comes to leading roles — just 3 percent of the protagonists were women last year — although Felicity Jones’ performance in the $1 billion worldwide-grossing “Rogue One” proves that a female protagonist can resonate with audiences in a traditionally male-dominated genre.

This year, Hollywood is placing its bets on Scarlett Johansson as a cyborg in DreamWorks/Paramount Pictures’ “The Ghost In the Shell” and Gal Gadot as the eponymous comic-book heroine in the DC Entertainment/Warner Bros. picture “Wonder Woman.”

“We have now seen over and over and over that female characters, when done well, they’re good box office,” said study author Martha Lauzen, reported Variety. 

“They’re not being relegated to a single genre like romantic comedies,” she said, adding, “Their fate is not tied to the fortunes of a single genre, and that suggests a more stable pattern.”