I'm always made to look
a lot shorter than the dude
in the movie posters.
I've had more ditches dug for me
with male actors who could've stood on a box.
There was actually a movie poster
of this really wonderful film I made,
where they took my head, and they put it on a smaller woman's body.
And it... it was a while ago,
so I guess Photoshop wasn't as good then as it is now,
but it still looks weird to me.
My mom calls it the "big head poster."
And I'm like, I know, because my head is proportional to my body.
Not the weird, like, 5'5" lady
whose head they put me on.
Like, it's super weird.
Movies and television shows
live or die based on how they're perceived.
And marketing has a big part to do with that.
Every time you see someone on a talk show
talking about a movie, that was orchestrated by a publicist.
Our work defines
how people perceive the movies that are out there.
Movie marketing is all about making a film feel like a must-see.
And oftentimes that relies
on selling the sex appeal of your stars.
A publicist is hired to help promote the work.
We help them with their whole, entire look.
Introducing them to stylists,
hairdressers, makeup artists.
You have all of these people that you assume that,
because you put money in their pocket, that they want...
not the best for you, but you assume that they wanna see you succeed
because that means they get to make more money.
But... they're also people
that know that sex sells
and that a woman in a certain type of way
will make them more money.
And so it becomes this very manipulative dynamic
that the people around you who are meant to be
protecting you and uplifting you
are... the same people pulling away
all of the things that make you you.
GINA PRINCE-Young actors have to put themselves out there,
and how many times have you done your first
cover shoot or magazine shoot, and they thought it was cool,
you know, take your shirt off and do some pose to cover.
Over and over and over and over and over again.
Why? Why can't it be about the work?
- There was that famous Vanity Fair cover,
where Rachel McAdams walked out of the shoot
because Tom Ford, who was directing the shoot,
decided that they were just gonna be naked on the cover.
And Rachel McAdams said, "I'm... I'm not doing that."
It was like, "Oh, my gosh, the actress dared say no
to a Vanity Fair cover?"
Because it was just accepted that that's part of what you do
to sell your movie and yourself.
Does sex sell? Yes, sex sells.
But we have to transform even how we understand sex.
I mean, that's a tall order.
But that's what really has to happen.
Because, if it's a passive, young woman
in her underwear, you know,
and then you have the-- the male actors
who can get up to 85
and still play the sexy male leads.
They get to be human beings, and they get to be sexy at the same time.
That's kind of denied to women.
There's so much money that's been spent on the movie
before it gets to marketing,
and then there's so much money that's spent on the marketing, like,
that, in some cases, was the same amount of money
that was spent on the movie.
So, you could have a movie that cost $50 million to make
with $50 million in marketing.
So, you've got a hundred million dollars...
...that you need to make back
in box office.
So, that's a huge amount of pressure.
I did a movie that-- that I really love and people loved
called "Miss You Already," starring Drew Barrymore and Toni Collette.
But it was very hard to get-- get it out there.
They spent almost no dollars marketing it.
You know, even with those two awesome actresses.
It had a ten-minute standing ovation at Toronto Film Festival.
But, you know, people didn't believe we--
"I don't know if we can attract women to theaters."
Well, you gotta try!
If you are a director
who has had a lot of success,
then you will have more control over approvals.
But there were so few women directors
and so few women directors being given those jobs that,
you know, by definition, they were just not in that bracket,
so they didn't have the same power of approval.
- I recently, on a project,
had my executive... call me
and say that you're pushing it with marketing.
All the years she had been at that company,
no producer, male or female, had been as involved in marketing
as I was trying to be.
And... Steven Spielberg has worked for that company.
Tell me he wasn't involved in the marketing.
And, by the way, I get a stand-down phone call...
once a month.
Like menstr-- like a period.
It's like, I know every 28 days
somebody's gonna call me and tell me to stand down.
You will have these big
marketing presentations,
and you will passionately say, you know,
of the three different poster ideas or the ten different posters,
why you think this one is important.
With "Miss Bala," I didn't want her to have a gun.
I didn't want her to be, like, a gun porn thing.
I thought that Gina Rodriguez was amazing
when she didn't even have the makeup on,
wasn't all glammed out, and was fighting in the dust,
and I found this great picture of her, you know, I even mocked up the poster,
look how strong this could be!
But they decided, nope, we're going for the ultra-glam picture
and the gun's in there.
Now, did they listen to me a little bit?
Maybe. The gun was slightly subdued.
It wasn't front and center.
There was a lot of bias in the way that movies were positioned.
I look back on that, and I think it's quite troubling
that we were, you know, dealing in stereotypes.
For "Jennifer's Body," I went into making the film
with the premise that it was about a friendship.
And about a toxic friendship between two girls.
And that's just not what the materials suggested
the movie had anything to do with.
It became so much about Megan Fox as a sex symbol.
As an object of everyone's desire,
and while that is a component of the movie--
and an important component of the movie that I was attempting,
and Diablo was attempting to poke holes into--
the main character is...
a different character
played by Amanda Seyfried.
There was an original trailer
that we saw a cut of...
that didn't even have the main character
played by Amanda Seyfried in the trailer.
I was included to the degree
that I was probably tolerated.
I voiced my concerns, um,
vigorously, repeatedly,
um, and I'm sure was a pain in the ass
for everyone who had to... to hear it from me.
That was a moment of really learning about a system
that's bigger, you know, sort of than...
certainly than me at that time.
think, in terms of marketing and PR,
has made people more aware of tropes
and those sort of cringe-worthy moments
of how women have been portrayed at times.
Everyone's now aware.
And so, when I talk about things, when I get shown
an early look of a poster or even concepts for a photoshoot,
those conversations, they're much easier.
People are appreciative of the fact that you pointed something out
that they may not have noticed.
- So, your film's been released, it's gotten great reviews.
It's gotten strong box office.
And then there's one last hurdle
that a filmmaker is going to have to jump over,
and that's the awards race.