These are not rhetorical questions, nor are they just for xeno.
How many male led action movies have bombed, how many male led superhero movies have bombed, yet they keep making more. Your argument falls apart right there. If you use the cause and effect argument, then there should be no male superhero movies either. Sorry, don't buy that argument. also, Ripley and Katniss were plenty capable and THEY were the stars of those franchises, the males were clearly support. Also, THG is not simply a love story, to argue that is wrong.
There aren't many female action movies because studios REFUSE to make them, so a few bomb because they're bad, then they refuse to make more, then use those few to justify not making more, that's some grade A BS right there.
My argument doesn't fall apart, because it's about correlation not cause and effect. Correlation means when one happens the other happens. When a female superhero movie happens, it is a bad movie. That's historically true. When a male superhero movie happens, it may be a bad movie, it may not be. So there's no correlation.
Studios don't refuse to make them. They make them, put good talent on them, and they suck. Unless someone figures out WHY they suck, there's no point in just trying again.
Katniss' arc is driven by her relationship with Peetah, and her mastery of that relationship serves as the context and empowerment to 'defeat' the Hunger Games. In the film, she was strong willed, but clearly no match for anyone in single combat. Ripley even worse so, her team beat Ash for her, and her crowning moment of awesome was firing a grappling hook, working controls. Resourceful underdog with strong vital
life saving relationships with her supporting cast. Like Katniss. Like Selene. Like Sarah Connor. Not like a female superhero. These are the types of female action heroines that are popular, women who stand no chance of facing their foes one on one, who rely on their network, their relationships, to gain victory and then strike a final blow with their relatively modest combat abilities in what may be the film's only fight scene. Women who take no shame in having a man fight their battles for them, and wouldn't survive otherwise. The more powerful Ripley got, the worse and less popular her films were.
Again, this is the idea of correlation, when you see bad movies have X in common and successful ones have Y in common, you realize that Y is part of the picture, even if you don't know why, exactly.
Now if you want to go into Y, we can discuss that, but please at least address the argument before you dismiss it.
Plenty of male-led action films fail, yet the actors' gender is not blamed. Why should it be different for women? Especially since far more male-led action films are made than female-led action films?
Because there are a lot of male led action films that succeed, some wildly so. In fact, it's a notable exception when a male led action film really bombs.
Exactly, you and I agree completely. That is the one argument that people on the other side cannot easily refute. You can't say that female action movies won't sell if you don't make many of them and don't put much effort into the one's that you do make.
Well, there are male action movies that don't get much effort and do sell. If you look at the first five to ten male action movies, some of them do very well, so you have some evidence to see they sell. For female action movies, this is not true, so you have to ask... how many times do you have to try in order to find one that sells? How much money are you going to throw down that hole that clearly doesn't sell as well as the male action movie?
As for effort... every single one was a passion project for both the director and the actress, so a lack of effort is not the issue. Perhaps you can say lack of money, and that's true, their budgets are lower than the modern male actioner. So are you saying that female action movies can only be successful with big budgets? Because this is not true of male action movies.
People (not you guys) cite Elektra and Catwoman as why females superhero movies won't do good but fail to realize those movies were just horrible and had no amount of care put into them at all. Jennifer Gardner has said she's ashamed of Elektra because she realized it was terribly made and Halle Berry accepted the Razzie for Catwoman herself. She knew the film was terrible too. And both of these actresses are great actresses.
Two female superheros movies were made that bombed. Green Lantern, Daredevil (the theatrical cut), Ghost Rider (#2 more than #1), Spider-Man 3, Batman and Robin were all terrible movies all male led but no one considers that because of their gender. These studios need to realize movies don't suck based on gender a majority of the time, they just suck.
Why is it WB have so much trouble getting a WW film or TV show made but can make a Flash TV show? I'd argue WW should be easy. An Amazonian princess placed in the real world in a fish outta water scenario who has superpowers and wants to be a hero. Seriously, what's so hard about that?
Supergirl, Tank Girl, Aeon Flux... countless non-superhero female action movies. All bombed. They're not just looking at those two projects, those are just brought up most often because they were marketed well and made by solid directors and white hot actresses.
Now you're telling me when people look at the male superhero bombs and decide to make a male one anyway, it's not because of all of the successful male superhero movies... it's just cuz they're male, and the success of Spider-Man 1 and 2 don't figure into making another Spider-Man movie... it's just cuz he's a male?
If WW is "easy," (because if I can sum it up in a sentence, then it's easy to do well... rocket science, brain surgery... what's so hard about those?) then Flash is infinitely easier on every level, which means less time figuring out stuff and more time making it awesome.
