Hollywood Women Are About to Kick a Lot of Ass on the Big Screen — CinemaCon 2017
“I’m a bitch!” From the CinemaCon stage, Charlize Theron proudly delivered this assessment of her character in Universal’s “Atomic Blonde,” which she also developed and produced. Her pride is understandable: She’s the abstract for Hollywood’s newest vision of women on screen: They’re hot, fearless, funny and brassy.
It’s a model once hailed as near radical, back when Universal released Paul Feig’s “Bridesmaids” in 2011 and it went on to earn $288 million worldwide. (Hollywood still seems to be in no rush to put women behind the camera; all of these women-starring films touted at CinemaCon were directed by men.)
Much credit goes to Universal chairman Donna Langley, who shepherded “Bridesmaids” as well as Amy Schumer vehicle “Trainwreck.” She also bet heavily and won when she aggressively chased down the “Fifty Shades of Gray” and “Pitch Perfect” franchises. Now, it’s become a template across all studios that see the franchise potential.
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Sony’s Scarlett Johannson vehicle, “Rough Night,” features gangs of women letting loose on vacation in Miami, while Queen Latifah and Jada Pinkett Smith take on New Orleans in Universal’s “Girls Trip.” At Universal’s panel, Pinkett Smith praised director Malcolm Lee for handling his improvisation-giddy cast so well while on location at the Essence Festival. “It wasn’t easy,” she said.
And STX wasted no time greenlighting a sequel to “Bad Moms,” the highest-grossing R-rated comedy of 2016. The hook? “Moms Christmas.” Emma Watson stars as a smart woman who lands a job in the near future in “The Circle,” run by a Steve Jobsian figure portrayed by Tom Hanks. (James Ponsoldt adapts Dave Eggers.)
Even when the women have to provide serious eye-candy duty, there seems to be an effort made to balance the scales. In Paramount’s “Baywatch,” Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron’s physicality is just as objectified as their female costars, and the running gag is how wimpy some men are, no matter how packed their abs. One guy sings in the shower: “I am woman, hear me roar,” as a woman comments, “I’ve never heard that coming from a man before.”
Studios also seem to be increasingly comfortable with matching ass-kicking women to their male heroes. Universal cast Algerian “Star Trek” breakout and CinemaCon Female Star of Tomorrow Sofia Boutella to overpower Tom Cruise in the title role of “The Mummy.” (Bouter also has enthusiastic sex with undercover spy Charlize Theron in stuntman-director David Leitch’s action-packed “Atomic Blonde.”)
Theron also holds her own as a manipulatively alluring villain in “The Fate of the Furious,” which Universal screened at CinemaCon.
EuropaCorp producer-director Luc Besson cast Milla Jovovich-lookalike Cara Delevingne as the first female superhero from the comics of his youth. She trades stunts with Dane DeHaan in “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets,” to be released by STX, a studio that promotes itself as women-friendly. They also nabbed Jessica Chastain in the title role of Oscar bait “Molly’s Game,” the directorial debut of Aaron Sorkin that profiles a true-life high-stakes poker wrangler.
READ MORE: Charlize Theron’s ‘Atomic Blonde’ Shows Off Electric New Footage at CinemaCon 2017
And in Paramount’s “Annihilation” directed by Alex Garland, Natalie Portman and Jennifer Jason Leigh take up arms in the process of solving a biological mystery.
Michael Bay doesn’t have the best history with portraying women onscreen, but he has cast a 14-year-old Isabella Moner in “Transformers: The Last Knight,” alongside British actress Laura Haddock, who meets his usual babe standard but kicks ass — and occasionally dons glasses to establish her academic credentials.
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