Box Office Research: UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report
Released in 2022, the newest edition of the UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report (Part 1: Film) revealed “Audiences are also becoming increasingly diverse. The minority share of the US population is growing by nearly half a percent each year, constituting nearly 43% of the U. S. population in 2021, people of color will become the majority within a couple of decades.”
"Hollywood would benefit greatly from embracing 2021’s (re)affirmation of the bottom-line possibilities associated with major advances on the diversity front."
Today, studio films are more ethnically diverse than ever according to the 2022 Hollywood Diversity Report – which found that women and people of color “have made enormous gains” over the past decade in their share of leading roles in top-performing films. The report details these gains in front of and behind the camera, as well as how this correlates to the increased diversity of audiences.
For users of the ReSource, we encourage reviewing the report’s findings and recommendations on how hiring more women and people of color at all levels of creative and production correlate to increased earnings at the box office.
Read the Report
In 2021, diversity in front of the camera did not equate to more opportunities behind the camera for filmmakers who are women and people of color. They continue to receive less financing, even when they make films with white leads. Most of these filmmakers are relegated to low-budget films. The chronic underinvestment in women and people of color creates limited opportunities for them to showcase their talents to a wider audience.
This report was authored by Dr. Darnell Hunt and Dr. Ana-Christina Ramón. Michael Tran, Ariel Stevenson, Kali Tambree, Jade Abston, Jiyoung Kim, and Samantha Tecson contributed to data collection for analyses. Financial support from 2021 was provided by The Division of Social Sciences at UCLA; Leadership Sponsors, Netflix and the Latino Film Institute; and Annual Sponsors, The Walt Disney Company, NBCUniversal, Hulu, Starz, and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
(via socialsciences.ucla.edu)
