Editor’s Note : T.J. Newman is the New York Times bestselling author of Falling , and Drowning: The Rescue of Flight 1421 . Both were named Best Books of the Year by Amazon and each is moving forward as a movie at Universal and Warner Bros, respectively. Her new novel Worst Case Scenario is on sale now. Perhaps not surprisingly given her first novel was scribbled on cocktail napkins while she served as a flight attendant, Newman’s female empowerment column has as much a dream-big feel as her first column for Deadline, “An Open Letter to Dreamers . “
Inclusion In Movie Casting Has Seen Little Progress Since 2007, USC Annenberg Study Finds
Six years ago, Fandango surveyed 3,000 women moviegoers ages 18–54 to find out what kinds of movies they like to watch. Turns out, action movies were their favorite genre. Over two-and-a-half times more than rom-coms. Women moviegoers want exactly what men want: the fun, big, loud, action-packed summer blockbuster.
I went to see Top Gun: Maverick and when the movie was over, my friends all went home but I got back in line and saw it again. I saw it eight times in theaters (I’ve stopped counting home video views). I didn’t see Titanic six times in the theater because of the mushy love scenes. I saw Titanic six times in the theater because I wanted to watch the world’s greatest action director sink that giant ship. I went for the spectacle. The Dark Knight is my favorite film of all time. I love the twisted psychology of Heath Ledger’s Joker, but I love Batman pursuing him through the streets of Gotham in the Tumbler even more.
The movies that break out are the ones that satisfy both genders, like the recent Twisters just did. The audience for that film was split evenly between men and women and the group that liked it the most were women under the age of 25. The difference in box office success between Twisters and the latest Jason Statham movie? It’s women. What was the difference in the 1980s between a Chuck Norris movie and Die Hard ? Women. What was the difference in the 1990s between a Steven Segal movie vs. Speed ? Women. The legendary producer Gale Anne Hurd ( Terminator , Aliens , Armageddon ) understood this. In 1994, she told the New York Times , “That’s the thing about the best action-thriller stories. They are for women, too. And if they’re also for women, then women should be writing them as well.”
The action movies that top $100 million, now and always, almost exclusively feature strong women as stars or co-stars. Ripley in Alien, Sarah Connor in Terminator, Trinity in The Matrix, The Bride in Kill Bill, Imperator Furiosa in Mad Max , Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games , Lara Croft in Tomb Raider. And, of course, there are the female superheroes: Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, Harley Quinn and the remarkable women of Wakanda to list just a few. And yet, a study just out by the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative found only 30% of the leading film roles in the top films of 2023 went to women or girls. (And this was 2023! The year of Barbie, Beyoncé, and Taylor Swift!) And that 30% was a 14% drop from the previous year. Of the top 100 movies of 2023, only 11% were gender-balanced, meaning women/girls made up about half of the speaking roles. The head of the initiative, Dr. Stacy L Smith, put it best: “It is clear that there is either a dismissal of women as an audience for more than one or two films per year, a refusal to find ways to create meaningful change, or both.” Women make up 51.1% of the general population and nearly half of the moviegoing population and if the statistics show women want to see blockbuster action films, when is the representation on the screen, and behind the scenes, going to resemble the reality of the audience?
In 1992, Oscar winning director Kathryn Bigelow told Cinema Papers, “I don’t think directing is a gender related job. Perceptions that women are better suited to certain types of material are just stereotypes, they’re merely limitations.” I agree, and it goes for writing, too. When I sat down to write my first novel, I thought: What do I want to read? And the answer was a high-concept action thriller, which became Falling , the story of an airline pilot who is given a Sophie’s choice by a terrorist: crash the plane he is flying filled with 144 passengers or his family will be killed.
So yeah, people weren’t exactly pounding down the door. And I get it. A failed Broadway actress-turned-bookseller-turned-flight attendant doesn’t exactly scream bestselling author … which is probably why Falling was rejected by 41 agents. I was repeatedly told this was a male-dominated genre and that I should try writing something else. Something more girly. I can’t tell you how much I hated that. So I persevered, kept writing what I knew so many other women wanted to read, and here’s what happened next:
— Falling debuted at No. 2 on the New York Times bestseller list
— Falling became the fastest selling fiction debut at Simon & Schuster in two decades
— Falling sold in 35 countries
— Falling was named an Amazon Best Book of the Year for 2021
— The film rights to Falling sold to Universal in a seven-figure deal
I was determined not to be a one-hit wonder.
So I went even bigger and wrote Drowning : The Rescue of Flight 1421.
Book Biz Shocker: Flight Attendant-Turned-Phenom Author T.J. Newman Makes Jump To Little Brown
— It debuted at No. 5 on the New York Times bestseller list
— It won rave reviews
— It sold in 37 countries
— It was named an Amazon Best Book of the Year for 2023
— The film rights sold to Warner Bros in a major seven-figure deal. Paul Greengrass is directing and Steve Kloves is writing the screenplay
I wanted my success with these two back-to-back bestsellers to lead to more women following in my footsteps and jumping into the action-thriller space. If I helped crack the glass ceiling, I wanted the women who came behind me to shatter it.
But four years later not much has changed.
When you look at the action-thriller book category today on Amazon, 95% of the authors are still men (which is different than the mystery/thriller category, which is flooded with amazingly talented women authors). Women account for about 80% of all fiction book sales in the U.S., UK and Canada, and they tend to prefer thrillers, mystery and crime (men lean toward science fiction, history and biographies). I was encouraged to read about Kim Sherwood, who rebooted the James Bond franchise with novels Double or Nothing and A Spy Like Me . But for the most part, like in Hollywood, action thrillers in publishing remain a male-dominated enterprise, even if the readership is not.
I want to inspire, help, support and see more women writing, producing, directing and authoring action-thrillers. I want to see more publishing companies and studios hiring women to tell these types of stories. I want women writers who love this genre as much as I do to realize they aren’t an anomaly, that there is an entire community of women who love the same things they do.
If Falling was my Speed , and Drowning was my Gravity , my new novel Worst Case Scenario is my Armageddon , Independence Day or The Perfect Storm. It’s the biggest book I’ve ever done — the biggest action sequences, the highest stakes imaginable, and real grab-your-heart emotional character moments you’ll never forget. The premise of the book asks the question: What would happen if a commercial airliner crashed into a nuclear power plant? I found the answer in the ordinary people of one small town who work together to try to save not only their community, but the world. No spoilers here, it’s out this week if you want to know if they pull it off, but I will say their fate may come down to the resolve of one woman. Worst Case Scenario features strong female leads and supporting characters. All of my books do. As they say, write what you know.
Women have been involved in making movies since the earliest days of film. In 1896, Alice Guy Blaché was working for the Lumiere brothers in France when she borrowed a camera and shot the one-minute La Fée aux Choux , believed to be the first narrative film ever. Over a century later, women are still making films, but few are given the chance to make the ones most people want to see — “guys” movies.
Yes, there are women who have broken through and make these kinds of movies and TV series —producers such as Hurd, Sherry Lansing ( Black Rain, School Ties , the first women to head a major studio), Debra Hill ( Halloween, Escape From New York ) and Kathleen Kennedy ( Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park ); directors Kathryn Bigelow ( Point Break, The Hurt Locker ), Patty Jenkins ( Wonder Woman ), Gina Prince-Bythewood ( The Woman King and The Old Guard ), Cathy Yan ( Birds of Prey ), Michelle MacLaren ( Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad ), Lesli Linka Glatter ( The Walking Dead, Justified ), Chai Vasarhelyi ( Free Solo, Nyad ) and Chloé Zhao ( Eternals ); and screenwriters Amanda Silver ( Avatar sequels, Planet of the Apes ), Laeta Kalogridis ( Terminator Genisys ), Geneva Robertson-Dworet ( Captain Marvel , Tomb Raider ), Kelly Marcel (the Venom movies) and Christina Hodson ( Bumblebee, Birds of Prey ) to name only a few. I’m fortunate enough to be writing the film adaptation of Falling as well, something only possible thanks to those women screenwriters who came before me and broke into the action space.
I know there are other girls out there like me, women who dream in blockbuster action sequences. I want my success to encourage them to write the stories they want to see, even if they don’t think they’re supposed to. To them I say: don’t let anything stand in your way — and that starts with yourself. I promise you, you’re not alone. Both as an artist, and as an audience member. I’m confident there’s an entire community of readers waiting to read their new favorite big blockbuster tale — that a woman is writing right now.
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