With the worldwide success of action genre shows like Killing Eve, House of the Dragon and Ahsoka, there has been a definite increase in the interest in female-led action series’ over the past few years. A more focused approach on creating “charismatic” and “empowered” women leads has dragged audiences in - engaging in the story and the characters at the centre of it.
With the demand for Marvel TV shows dwindling across the board, despite the exceptional start with WandaVision and Loki, Marvel’s Echo seemed set to face the same fate. Marvel has released its fair share of female-led movies and TV shows to mixed reviews and mixed audience engagement. The first Marvel TV show was led by Elizabeth Olsen and had a demand of 85.4x the average within the first month of its release in 2021. However, with the releases of She-Hulk and Ms Marvel, the demands have fallen to 70.4x and 46.6x respectively in their first month. Whilst still achieving outstanding demand data compared to the average, there is a decline in the general desire for Marvel’s TV shows and this has extended to its female-lead shows as well. The 68.9% decrease in demand from the initial release of WandaVision to the release of Echo, could be attributed to the general superhero fatigue or the apparent downfall of the MCU as a whole.
Over the past month, we compared the demand for Echo and the top three TV shows with female leads and although reaching 11.2x the average demand, Echo is behind, despite the fact that it was released much more recently than the other three. It does however, confirm that the demand for female-lead TV shows is persistent, even two years after the release of the final episode, as in the case of the BBC’s Killing Eve.
Building on the immense success of Game of Thrones, Max’s spin-off House of the Dragon performed as well as expected with a peak demand of 154.5x the average since release in August 2022. Generally, shows with an already established massive IP usually have a higher than average demand, due to being built upon a pre-existing fanbase, so success was predicted. The show is an overall hit with the fans, so a spike in demand is definitely expected when series 2 is released.
Killing Eve was and continues to be a huge success, still meeting outstanding demand, nearly 2 years after the airing of the final episode. With a peak demand of 74.8x, Killing Eve is appreciated by fans and critics alike, where it subverts expectations allowing Eve (Sandra Oh) to “play the role of a typical male hero”. This refreshing take on the spy genre, with comedy at its heart, could be why Killing Eve is so popular, dragging audiences back again and again.
The audience for Killing Eve is 71.4% female which could be due to the fact that the show is made by women, for women, portraying “well rounded, complex, and interesting” female characters in a genre that was until recently very male-dominated. Across the world, the demand for action TV series’ was only slightly male dominated (55.9%) so the spike in demand for Killing Eve’s large female audience could be due to the fact that the two leads are women.
In the last year, the demand for the top 4 female-led action genre movies has been exceptional for Everything Everywhere All At Once, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and The Marvels and outstanding for Scream 6, compared to the average movie in the market. Everything Everywhere All At Once and Black Panther 2 were released in 2022, and have continued to be at the forefront of demand for the past year. Everything Everywhere All At Once is also the only movie that is not part of a franchise, which could possibly indicate that there is a prominent market for new, original art.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever had Shuri, played by Letitia Wright, take over the mantle of Black Panther from the late Chadwick Boseman with “strong, absorbing performances across the board”, creating an emotional, heart-felt tribute to the fan favourite character. Released in 2022, the movie still has commanded strong audience attention hitting an astounding peak of 197.2x more demand than the average for movie in the market.
Winning the Most In-Demand Superhero Movie Worldwide of 2023 in the Parrot Analytic Global Demand Awards, the success Black Panther 2 could be owing to the fact that the film was lead by a plethora of strong, female characters that audiences could relate to. Further to this, Netflix’s Enola Holmes, another female led action thriller, had astounding success in Europe winning the Most In-Demand European Export of 2023. It could be inferred that the achievements of these two movies can be attributed to the representation of engaging, female leads.
The graph above compares the demand rankings of two movies in the action genre which both reached #1 globally since their respective releases. Released by A24 and with a budget of only $25m, Everything Everywhere All At Once is leading in demand for all movies with an unbelievable peak of 461.1x the average since its release in 2022. The movie, starring Michelle Yeoh, won an array of awards, including the 2023 Oscar for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role and Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role for Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis, respectively.
The Marvels is another installation in the narrative of Disney’s MCU and as such follows the high demand of other films in this franchise, despite mixed reviews. The film, as expected, had peak domestic demand but also global demand, likely due to the global success of the MCU in general. The sequel to Captain Marvel in 2019, The Marvels is led by three female superheroes who are celebrated as an “entertaining intergalactic ensemble” and so the film is received as a solid, fun entry in the MCU, in a franchise that is generally male-dominated. Its success, however, could also be credited to the already established fanbase of the first Captain Marvel film and that of the MCU as a whole.
In contrast with female-lead TV shows, female-lead films are enjoyed by all genders fairly equally, over a range of different ages. This could be due to the action genre’s classical dominance from the film industry, especially with big companies such as that of Disney’s MCU.
Through both TV shows and films, female-lead media is growing in demand and as a result, more representation is being created, especially in the action genre.
