'Wonder Woman,' 'Girls Trip,' 'Lady Bird' Among First Recipients of ReFrame Gender Parity Stamp
In addition, Amazon, HBO and Ryan Murphy Productions are among 25 companies and organizations that pledged to become ReFrame Partners.
A little over a year after the unveiling of ReFrame, an ambitious coalition of more than 50 top-level industry executives and creatives committed to achieving gender parity in Hollywood, the group is ready to announce the first results of one of its founding initiatives.
The ReFrame Stamp is a badge of honor for film and TV projects that hire women in at least half of eight key production positions – writer, director, producer, lead actor, co-lead, speaking parts, department heads and crew – with double points for women of color in key responsibilities. These criteria will be adjusted as industry conditions evolve. In evaluating the top 100 U.S. grossing films of 2017, 12 features met the mark:
Everything, Everything
Girls Trip
Home Again
Kidnap
Lady Bird
My Little Pony: The Movie
Pitch Perfect 3
Smurfs: The Lost Village
Snatched
The Post
The Shape of Water
Wonder Woman
ReFrame, which will announce TV recipients later this year, is analyzing IMDbPro data to make its determinations for the stamp through an official collaboration that the group is announcing today. IMDb will dedicate a page to ReFrame activities on its site, while the two entities will tout ReFrame stamped projects at festivals and other industry events, including June 13's Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Awards.
"Through this collaboration we are committed to cultivating a more inclusive media landscape that illuminates the cultural and economic benefits of diversity in storytelling," Welle Entertainment president and ReFrame co-founder Cathy Schulman said in a statement. "We're grateful to IMDbPro for enabling us to utilize their data expertise to better and more thoroughly highlight industry-leading projects that reflect diversity in the real world. While 2017 saw an uptick in films directed by women, throughout the past decade, the growth curve of female directors in the top 100 list has been flat, with women accounting for just 4.3 percent of the total from 2007 to 2016. It is our hope that the stamp will continue to expand opportunities for women in all positions, in front of and behind the camera, throughout the screen industries each year."
In addition to the first class of stamp recipients, The Hollywood Reporter can exclusively reveal the second round of companies and organizations that have officially signed on as ReFrame Partners, committing to follow through on the coalition's research-based action plan:
A+E Networks/Lifetime
Amazon Studios
AMC Networks
Aviron Pictures
The Black List
Cine Mosaic
Color Force
Court Five
Michael De Luca Productions
Elevated Entertainment
Film L.A.
FeigCo
Film Nation
Gidden Media
HBO
Homegrown Pictures
Independent Filmmaker Project
MACRO
Made Up Stories
Madison Wells Media MWM
Out of the Blue Entertainment
Ryan Murphy Productions
Topple Productions
Welle Entertainment
WGA West
These 25 entities join the seven ReFrame Partners that were announced in March: Annapurna, Lionsgate, Netflix, PGA, SAG-AFTRA, Showtime and TNT/TBS. Partners are recruited in meetings with ReFrame ambassadors, many of whom advantageously lead the companies being courted, such as Ryan Murphy and new Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke. They're two of eight new ambassadors – the others are Lifetime and LMN executive vp Tanya Lopez, Verve partner Amy Retzinger, Jill Soloway, actor-director Betty Thomas, Independent Filmmaker Project executive director Joana Vicente and producer Janet Yang – bringing the total to nearly 60.
"The ReFrame ambassadors and partner companies, together with Women in Film and Sundance Institute, are leaders in charting a path towards progress on the issues of inclusivity and gender equity in entertainment, and we are proud to collaborate with ReFrame to provide them with our data and professional resources to award their stamp and support this vision," IMDbPro head Matt Kumin said in a statement. "We congratulate this first group of ReFrame Stamp recipients on their commitment to inclusive storytelling and success in reaching audiences and look forward to continuing to work with ReFrame to celebrate other productions that meet the criteria."
