Editorials > Warner Bros Denies Rumors of Gender Discrimination

LAWeekly columnist Nikki Finke posted recently in her Deadline Hollywood Daily column that Jeff Robinov, president of Warner Brothers, had declared a ban on films with women in the lead. From Finke's column:

This comes to me from three different producers, so I know it's real: Warner Bros president of production Jeff Robinov has made a new decree that "We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead". This Neanderthal thinking comes after both Jodie Foster's The Brave One (even though she's had big recent hits with Flightplan and Panic Room) and Nicole Kidman's The Invasion (as if three different directors didn't have something to do with the awfulness of the gross receipts) under-performed at the box office recently.

Naturally these accusations drew some attention. John from TheMovieBlog called and emailed the WB a few times and finally got this brief conversation out of it:

WB Rep - “Mr. Robinov never made that statement, nor is it his policy.”

TMB - “So are you saying it is not now, nor will be Warner Bros. policy to stop producing films with female leads?”

WB Rep - “Correct. That is not our policy. A blogger (assumably Nikki Finke) made a statement without giving us the opportunity to first respond.”

It's hard to speculate how this all got started. It's possible Finke made the whole thing up, but why would she when she would stand to lose so much credibility? It's possible that Robinov said it as a joke, and it was blown out of proportion. Afterall, the logic of declaring moratorium on female-driven films is flawed at best. There are plenty of male-centric films that flop. Foster's The Brave One drastically out-performed the similar Kevin Bacon movie Death Sentence, for example.

It's also possible that Robinov said it and meant it and now they're trying to hush things up before they have a boycott on their hands. We may never know. But as it stands, WB will be skating on thin ice until everyone forgets about this in about six months.

Written by David Morgan