Film Industry and Tech Consolidation — New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

Calls to dislodge Hollywood’s gender-myopic approach to storytelling have long been part of the narrative surrounding women in the filmmaking community. In 2018, New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis suggested, “Maybe it’s time for women to burn down the old movie industry, then build a new one” as she lamented the lack of female-led films and the dearth of women directors. More recently, Kristen Stewart talked about her eight-year journey to direct her latest film, The Chronology of Water. When accepting the Maverick Award at the IndieWire Honors ceremony in December, she railed against an industry that would stifle the voices of those “on the margins” or cause them to doubt their experiences and instincts, concluding, “So let’s break some stuff. Let’s rebuild it . . . We can take it.” Stewart and Dargis represent just two of the many women who have pushed back on a culture-creating business clearly built to favor the male half of the population. Though years apart in their calls for a new kind of dream factory, both of these women recognize the nightmare, er, challenge that is Hollywood.

The reality is that they have encountered a business in which women’s representation as filmmakers has barely budged over the last quarter century. The historical record shows that women have never topped 25% of those working in key behind-the-scenes roles since the annual Celluloid Ceiling study began collecting data in 1998. According to the latest edition of the report released in January, women comprised just 23% of directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors, and directors of photography working on the top 250 (domestic) films of 2025, the same percentage as in 2024. That these numbers would not vary from year to year is not a surprise. The revelation is that they’ve barely moved in almost three decades. In 1998, women accounted for 17% of those in behind-the-scenes roles, just 6 percentage points below last year’s figure.

A consideration of the numbers broken down by role drives home the point. In 1998, women accounted for 20% of editors. 28 years later, the number remains the same, with some minor fluctuations in the intervening years. Women accounted for 4% of cinematographers in 1998 and 7% in 2025. The percentage of women writers increased from 13% in 1998 to 20% in 2025. Women made up 24% of producers in 1998 and 28% in 2025. They comprised 18% of executive producers in 1998 and 23% in 2025. Women accounted for 9% of directors in 1998 and 13% in 2025.

And now, as the film industry is entering an era of unfettered, next-level consolidation with largely unregulated tech companies, and the political war against diversity rolls on, it seems unlikely that the change that’s coming is the change Stewart, Dargis, and so many others had in mind. Larry and David Ellison’s newly formed Paramount Skydance and Netflix are jockeying to acquire all or some of Warner Bros. Discovery. This deal will not be the end but rather the beginning of a race for other companies to grow larger, with industry watchers speculating that even the proverbial 800-pound gorilla that is Disney will be in search of partners, such as Apple, to expand its reach. With this unprecedented consolidation comes more insular thinking, reinforcing an environment antithetical to a multiplicity of voices and more inclined to rely on economies of scale that technologies such as AI can provide.

It’s no secret that tech companies have incubated and fostered a bro culture since their inception. Tech journalist and podcaster Kara Swisher details the predilections of these companies and their leaders in her latest chronicle, Burn Book. Talking about the slog toward even minimal inclusivity in the tech world, Swisher points out a deeply embedded and sexist culture built on over-the-top egos and adolescent shenanigans. She describes tech as a “mirrortocracy, full of people who liked their own reflection so much that they only saw value in those that looked the same.” She points out that the need to maintain quality and standards has been used as an excuse to maintain the homogeneity of the business. As Swisher notes, legal maneuvers, such as Ellen Pao’s gender discrimination and retaliation lawsuit, and Sheryl Sandberg’s upbeat “lean in” strategy, ended up having only a limited impact on the prevailing ethos.

Parallels to the mainstream film industry are obvious. For years, the men controlling the purse strings in Hollywood have suggested that women are not interested in or not capable of making the big-budget, high-profit tentpoles the studios churn out. A glance at last summer’s blockbusters reveals that they relied almost entirely on male directors to helm their features, including Gareth Edwards (Jurassic World: Rebirth), James Gunn (Superman), Joseph Kosinsky (F1), and Len Wiseman (Ballerina).

It’s easy to see how Swisher’s remarks about biases at tech companies meshes almost seamlessly with what we know about the same kinds of biases in the film industry, making it likely that the new bosses will continue the hiring and green-lighting practices of the old bosses. When Steven Spielberg supported an inexperienced Colin Trevorrow to direct the $150 million plus Jurassic World because Trevorrow reminded Spielberg of his younger self, it was a brutally bald demonstration of subconscious bias at work.

In the reconfigured Hollywood melding traditional film studios with tech companies, one has to wonder whether the new ownership structure will change the behind-the-scenes gender ratios at all, or simply reinforce the attitudes and hiring patterns that have traditionally ruled the business.