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A "Barbie" World? For Female Creatives, Hollywood Is Still Just as ‘Bleak’ as Some Fear, but It Doesn’t Have to Be

Proven creators like Sofia Coppola, Jennifer Lopez, and Diablo Cody have all shared their struggles to find financing. If they’re concerned, we all should be.

While Greta Gerwig ‘s “Barbie” made a billion dollars at the box office and shattered the record for both the highest-grossing film ever to be released by Warner Bros. and ever directed by a woman, studios are still gun-shy at providing funding for female-fronted projects. Lopez — whose net worth is an estimated $400 million and has earned more than $1 billion at the box office across her filmography — recently told The Hollywood Reporter that when a financier pulled out of “This Is Me…Now: A Love Story,” she opted to go the way of Francis Ford Coppola and simply fund the project herself. Blanchett’s Dirty Films producing partner, Emmy Award nominee Coco Francini, and USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative founder and director Dr. Stacy L. Smith are also behind the program, which is funded by Netflix.

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