Gone are the days when the idea of the shelf life of an actress was preached. Women of the entertainment industry through their sheer passion and love for storytelling are busting this myth. According to a report by Women and Hollywood, females comprised only “34% of the speaking roles”. BBC found out that in the US, women comprised just 8% of the directors working on the top 250 US domestic grossing films. In India, there was only 1 female-directed commercially successful film of 2019. These numbers are staggering and legitimate as there are fewer female producers throughout the globe. Hence, it is important to know the following women whose success behind the scenes can be viewed as a bellwether for change. After ruling the silver screen and immortalizing many characters they are now looking for global domination by creating their own content.
1: Anushka Sharma told a leading daily that she is overwhelmed by the love and adulation to Amazon’s Crime ‘Paatal Lok’ which dropped on the streaming giant on 15 May. Anushka is considered among the very few Indian actresses who successfully have established their career in Production line. She founded her production company ‘Clean Slate Pictures’ jointly with her brother Karnesh Sharma in 2013. Her first home production was Navdeep Singh directed crime thriller NH10 that released in 2015 with critical and commercial success. It was followed by 2017 romantic/fantasy drama Phillauri and subsequently 2018 horror movie, Pari.
Upcoming Ventures:- It includes Netflix film titled ‘Bulbul’, Netflix Series ‘Mai’ and crime drama film, Kaneda.
2: Priyanka Chopra Jonas: She founded Purple Pebble Pictures with her mother Dr. Madhu Chopra. The company strives for bringing stories from small parts of India while promoting new talents. With its aim to support regional cinema, it has produced many critically acclaimed films including the 2016 Marathi comedy-drama Ventilator which grabbed three National Film Awards. It was followed by films like Pahuna: The Little Visitors (2018), Firebrand (2019), national award-winning Paani (2019), Assamese film Bhoga Khirikee (2019) and Priyanka’s first Hindi joint production The Sky is Pink (2019)
Upcoming Ventures: an Untitled Netflix Show, untitled buddy comedy for Universal Pictures, and a reality show for Amazon.
3: Nicole Kidman:- The academy award winning actress is certainly aiming for big as her production company, Blossom Films founded in 2010, has lined up five projects for different streaming platforms. The company has produced movies like Rabbit Hole(2010), Monte Carlo(2011) and The Family Fang(2015). Nicole Co-Produced and starred in HBO miniseries Big Little Lies(2017-) which met with thunderous success. She recently produced and starred in 2020 HBO miniseries, The Undoing.
In an interview to Variety she said, “TV has proven to be a fantastic way to really explore characters”.
Upcoming Projects: Nine Perfect Strangers for Hulu and Crime Farm for HBO Max. Pretty Things, The Expatriates, and A Good Marriage for Amazon.
4: Charlize Theron: The actress founded her production company Denver & Delilah with an aim to back female-centric movies. The company’s first production was Monster (2003) which starred Charlize herself. It then backed a vast number of film projects including Young Adult (2011), Dark Places (2015), Brain on Fire (2016), Atomic Blonde (2017), Tully (2018), Gringo (2018), A Private Way (2018), Long Shot (2019), The Addams Family (2019) and Bombshell (2019).
Denver & Delilah has also produced Netflix’s highly acclaimed series Mindhunter
Upcoming Projects: Netflix film The Old Guard and The Addams’ Family 2
5: Margot Robbie: The Once Upon a Time in Hollywood actress also has her own production company called ‘LuckyChapEntertainment’, founded in 2014 with Tom Ackerley, Josey McNamara and Sophia Kerr. It vouches to “tell women’s stories on-screen and support women creators behind the scenes”. ‘I, Tonya’ was the first production of the company starring Margot Robbie herself which got her a nomination for best actress in the Academy Awards. In 2018, the company produced ‘Terminal’, followed by ‘Dreamland’ in 2019.
In the same year, LuckyChap produced web television series ‘Dollface’ for Hulu and collaborated with Warner Brothers to produce ‘Birds of Prey’ starring Robbie herself.
Upcoming Projects: It includes Netflix Series ‘Maid’ and movies like Promising Young Woman, Barbie, Tank Girl, My Year of Rest & Relaxation.
6: Reese Witherspoon: While talking about the imperativeness of starting her own Production Company ‘Hello Sunshine’, Reese said, “Why am I going to go to studios who don’t make movies for women”. Before ‘Hello Sunshine’, she had been producing content under the production company ‘Pacific Standard’ which she jointly owned with Seth Rodsky. Under Pacific standard, she produced movies like Gone Girl (2014), Hot Pursuit (2014) and Wild (2015). She also co-produced and acted in 2017 HBO miniseries Big Little Lies.
With ‘Hello Sunshine’ established in 2016 she produced shows like The Morning Show (2019-) and Truth be Told (2019-) for Apple TV+.
Upcoming Ventures: Hulu miniseries ‘Little Fries Everywhere’, untitled comedy series for Apple TV+, ‘Daisy Jones & the Six’ for Amazon Video, “From Scratch” for Netflix and ‘Fierce Queens’ for Quibi.
7: ‘The Genius’ Phoebe Waller-Bridge: The creator of brilliantly written path-breaking shows like Fleabag, Angel and Killing Eve has recently in January 2020 launched her UK based film Production company called Wells Street Films. Phoebe who in the past has co-produced tragicomedy Fleabag (2016), BBC drama Killing Eve (2018), Crashing (2016) and HBO’s Run (2020), will be creating and producing content for Amazon as a part of the three years contract.
