'Lack of Female Directors' Problem Won't Be Solved by Fox or Paramount Before 2018

While there’s been a great deal of conversation about the lack of female directors being hired to make major Hollywood movies, including an ongoing ACLU investigation into the matter, it feels like it’s going to take years before the problem can be solved. A new report in The Wrap provides actual proof of that.

Related: Study Shows Just How Few Big Movies Are Directed by Women

An examination of the release schedules for both Fox and Paramount reveals that, from now through 2018, none of the films released by either studio will be directed by a woman. As The Wrap notes, that’s 22 upcoming movies at Fox and 25 on the docket at Paramount that will all have men at the helm. (Fox Searchlight, the specialty division of Fox that focuses mostly on arthouse films, is doing a little better: it has two movies with female filmmakers as directors or co-directors on its slate.)

To be clear: none of the studios are doing a particularly stellar job of hiring women to steer their films. But as The Wrap points out, the other biggies – including Disney, Sony, Universal, and Warner Bros. – do have a handful of female-led projects on the horizon. (The operative word being handful. Per The Wrap’s piece: “Warner Bros. typically releases the most movies each year, and it will release three films from female directors over the next several years.” Only three?)

Related: Jodie Foster: Change for Women Directors in Hollywood ‘Not Quick Enough’

All of this confirms that, even though the conversation around this issue has moved to the front burner, actual change and progress happens very slowly. Perhaps more stories like this highlighting the studios’ blindspots will help to speed things up, at least a tiny bit.

Jodie Foster, director of ‘Money Monster,’ on what makes her film exciting: