Gender and box office performance

ABSTRACT

We analyse the box office–movie star relationship since the 1990s. We find that, on average, the contribution of at least one star was large, equalling roughly 10% of a film’s revenues. Also, consistent with the substantial difference in the average compensation between male and female stars, having a male star in a film generated a premium in the neighbourhood of 12%, while female star had no statistical impact on a movie’s performance.

KEYWORDS:

• Movies
• gender
• media
• star power

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• J16
• L82

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.