Laetitia Wright Tops 2018 Box Office $$$ | Research Bashes Myth About Women Actors + Film Profits | Lina Iris Viktor Settles W/Kendrick Lamar

Laetitia Wright Tops 2018 Box Office $$$ | Research Bashes Myth About Women Actors + Film Profits | Lina Iris Viktor Settles W/Kendrick Lamar

1) Guyanese actor Laetitia Wright topped the Hollywood $$$ charts in 2018, with Fandango crowning her the Highest Box Office Earning Actor of 2018. The list was compiled based on domestic box office earnings, and Wright ran away with the title with an easy $1.55 billion in revenue. via Marie Claire

Wright’s films tallied by Fandango:

Black Panther ($700,059,566)

Avengers: Infinity War ($678,815,482)

Ready Player One ($137,690,172)

The Commuter ($36,343,858)

2) Movies Starring Women Earn More Than Male-Led Films New York Times

Creative Artists Agency and shift7, a company started by Megan Smith, the 3rd Chief Technology Officer of the US and Assistant to the President in the Obama administration, has blown a hole in the common Hollywood truism that women’led films perform poorly at the box office. Studying  the top movies from 2014 to 2017 , reality is that films starring women earned more than male-led films. Budget was not a determining factor. Whether the budget was $10 million or $100 million, women delivered box office cash.

At Austin's SXSW Female Heroines Kick Ass Back: Anne Hathaway, Brie Larson, Charlize Theron

As Austin's SXSW festival comes to a close, a new kind of hero took center stage, writes Joanna Robinson for Vanity Fair. "the battle-tested and badly bruised action heroine."

In a year when throngs of women are still reeling from Clinton's presidential election loss and the ascendancy of a narcissistic, Twitter-crazy megalomaniac to the White House, our commitment to resistance is bolstered by kickass heroines who get knocked down and rise up again. They include Anne Hathaway in 'Colossal'; Brie Larson in 'Free Fire'; Charlize Theron in 'Atomic Blonde'. 

There’s been a resistance growing—even among those who clamor for more female-fronted stories in film and television—against the catch-all phrase “strong female character.” Those three little words are often thrown up in defense of characters who are two-dimensional at best. If she can punch like the guys (or, as is often the case, better than the guys), then she must be strong, right? But actual progress is not about women being superior to their male counterparts; it’s about them being treated equally. And when most action films starring women are precious about their leading ladies, seeing the real consequence of violence on a female body is both shocking and refreshing. The heroines of SXSW offerings Free Fire, Atomic Blonde, and Colossal, just like generations of male heroes before them, grit their teeth through swollen faces, split lips, and bullet wounds to keep fighting their way out.

Read on: 'The Women of SXSW Take a Licking and Keep on Kicking Vanity Fair

2015 Academy Awards Nominees Announced

Full list of 2015 Academy Awards nominese atoscar.com

Best Picture

American Sniper

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Boyhood

The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Imitation Game

Selma

The Theory of Everything

Whiplash

Directing

Alejandro G. Iñárritu - Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Richard Linklater - Boyhood

Bennett Miller - Foxcatcher

Wes Anderson - The Grand Budapest Hotel

Morten Tyldum - The Imitation Game

Actor in a Leading Role

Steve Carell - Foxcatcher

Bradley Cooper - American Sniper

Benedict Cumberbatch - The Imitation Game

Michael Keaton - Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Eddie Redmayne - The Theory of Everything

Actress in a Leading Role

Marion Cotillard - Two Days, One Night

Felicity Jones - The Theory of Everything

Julianne Moore - Still Alice

Rosamund Pike - Gone Girl

Reese Witherspoon - Wild

Actor in a Supporting Role

Robert Duvall - The Judge

Ethan Hawke - Boyhood

Edward Norton- Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Mark Ruffalo - Foxcatcher

J.K. Simmons - Whiplash

Actress in a Supporting Role

Patricia Arquette - Boyhood

Laura Dern - Wild

Keira Knightley - The Imitation Game

Emma Stone - Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Meryl Streep - Into the Woodsxxx