Bryce Dallas Howard: Hollywood Needs Sponsorship, Not Mentorship — SkimNews
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- Bryce Dallas Howard told Variety's L.A. Power of Women event that "whatever is currently being done is not enough," pointing to a 2025 study showing only 9 women directed the 100 top-grossing U.S. films — just 8.1%, or a ratio of 11.3 men per woman.
- The 8.1% figure marks a decline from 2024, when women directed 13.4% of the top 100 box-office films, leading the study to call 2025 a "Great Recession" for female filmmakers.
- Howard argued the industry must move beyond mentorship to sponsorship — with companies financing the full research and development pipeline from early workshops through team-building — because the gaps between paid directing jobs are too long for filmmakers without financial privilege to survive.
- Howard brings direct experience, having directed episodes of "The Mandalorian," "The Book of Boba Fett," "Ahsoka," and "The Skeleton Crew," plus feature documentaries "Dads" (2019) and "Pets" (2025).
- Howard remains attached to direct Disney's "Flight of the Navigator" reboot, announced in 2021 and still listed in pre-production, and just wrapped directing two episodes of "Ahsoka" Season 2 — which she called "one of the best summers of her life."
- Creator Dave Filoni, Lucasfilm president, "is getting to do a lot of stuff that he's been waiting decades to do" on the action-heavy new season alongside star Rosario Dawson, according to Howard.
Why it matters: With female representation among top-grossing film directors falling from 13.4% to 8.1% in a single year, a high-profile filmmaker-director with major franchise credits is publicly putting pressure on studios and financiers to put money — not just advice — behind women directors. Howard's sponsorship-over-mentorship framing reframes the pipeline problem as a capital-allocation problem that studios and investors control directly.
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