12 Female Hollywood Creators With Exciting Upcoming Projects
Whether you’re an avid TV/movie watcher or not, there is still bound to be name recognition when it comes to creators like Steven Spielberg or Martin Scorsese, but why are none of the famous film creators you know female?
Even at the 93rd Academy Awards this past weekend, women made history as this was the first year two women were nominated for Best Director in the same year.
Here is a list of female film creators whose upcoming work(s) should get you excited.
1. Niki Caro
Known best for directing Whale Rider and Mulan (2020), she has three directing and one writing project in the works.
Also set to be an executive producer on the project, Caro is working on Daisy Jones & The Six, based on a novel of the same name following a fictional ‘70s band as they try to become icons.
Another movie adaptation of a book is her upcoming Beautiful Ruins, a beautifully written love story set in Italy with a lot of twists and turns.
Her last announced director project is The Mother. Not much has come out about this movie other than it is a female-led action-thriller starring Jennifer Lopez.
As a producer, she is involved with the upcoming biopic Callas about the opera star of the same name.
Caro has a handful of very impressive credits and the list is only growing, and I know I can’t wait to see what else she accomplishes with these and more projects.
2. Tamra Davis
With 79 director credits starting in 1986, she is somebody whose name you should really commit to memory. There is a good chance she directed at least one episode of a show you really like.
She is directing the TV movie Good Sam, which is in post-production and tells the story of a talented surgeon who gets thrown into a leadership position after her boss goes into a coma.
Also set to direct, the biography movie Slinky centers around a woman named Betty James who had to take over the slinky business after her husband leaves her and their six children.
The upcoming project of hers I am most excited about is 13, which follows a boy who is about to turn 13 after his family moves to the midwest from Manhattan. I saw this story in local musical theater performance and it is so much fun, while also being very relatable and heartwarming, and I know Davis is going to do the story a lot of justice.
If you don’t recognize her name, I recommend looking her up and starting to watch the things she has directed because she is probably on her way to becoming a household name.
3. Emerald Fennell
She was a Best Director nominee, and her film Promising Young Woman won Best Original Screenplay and was nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards this past weekend.
She is one of the writers for the pre-production, upcoming film Zatanna, which focuses on DC Comics superheroes of the same name.
Fennell is obviously a very well-rounded and talented storyteller who is sure to keep writing and directing even more inspiring and entertaining stories.
4. Greta Gerwig
With only three director credits and more known as an actress, she is a fan-favorite based on her direction of Little Women (2019) and Lady Bird.
She is the director and one of the writers for the upcoming Barbie movie, set to star Margot Robbie as Barbie. The story follows a doll who isn’t perfect enough and now has to live her life in the normal world. This movie is almost guaranteed to get a lot of viewers and will probably be a very influential feminist movie.
Gerwig is obviously very talented and has a knack for telling the stories of women, and I am very excited to see what comes out of her already very successful career as an actress.
5. Marielle Heller
With directing, acting, and writing credits Heller has shown her multifaceted creative talent. She is a writer on two upcoming announced projects.
I am most excited for The Case Against 8, which follows the story of the court case to life California’s Proposition 8, which legalized same-sex marriage.
She is also the writer for Kolma, which is a fantasy thriller following a widow nearing the end of her life when she is given the opportunity to relive her first love.
Her only other writing credit is The Diary of a Teenage Girl, but that combined with her upcoming projects is sure to make her gain momentum and more jobs.
6. Patty Jenkins
Having recently released the second installment of her Wonder Woman series, she is still going to be directing Wonder Woman 3 and I am really excited to keep seeing Gal Gadot’s Diana Prince on my screen.
She is also directing Cleopatra, a biography of the Egyptian leader also starring Gal Gadot, so that is pretty much guaranteed to be a good movie to watch.
Also announced is Jenkins directing Star Wars: Rogue Squadron. While Lucasfilm is very secretive about their Star Wars movie plots, we do know it will be able the Rebel Alliance air squadrons.
She is working on directing a lot of already big-name feature films, and it will be exciting to see what she does following all of these blockbusters.
7. So Yong Kim
A Korean director, editor, and writer, Kim has told a plethora of more serious and darker-themed stories including three episodes of Room 104.
She is directing four episodes of Dr. Death, an upcoming show starring Alec Baldwin, Christian Slater, and Anna Sophia Robb. It centers around a neurosurgeon whose patients frequently leave the OR maimed or dead and a group of people who set out to stop him.
This show sounds like it will be really interesting and I think Kim (along with other directors Maggie Kiley and Jennifer Morrison) will do an incredible job bringing such a twisted story to light.
8. Reed Morano
She is mostly known in the film world as a cinematographer, but she still has a few director and producer credits under her belt.
She directed and produced 10 episodes of the upcoming drama series The Power, based on a novel of the same name. It evaluates what all can change in the world when teenage girls gain physical powers and throw off the balance of the world. I hope this show becomes symbolic of what men are capable of doing in a patriarchal society.
She is also set to direct a crime drama movie The Godmother, which follows the life of drug lord Griselda Blanco.
Her transition from cinematographer to director/producer feels very natural and it will be very interesting to see what she does with her two confirmed projects and whatever else comes next.
9. Gina Prince-Bythewood
A writer, producer, and director, Prince-Bythewood has multiple credits in every category.
Upcoming, she will be directing The Woman King starring Viola Davis, which will follow the story of the leader of an all-female military unit and her daughter.
She will also direct and executive produce an episode of historical drama Women of the Movement, and it will follow women trying to get justice for the lynching and murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till.
She is telling very important stories and it will be great to see her continue to tell lesser-known stories and bring them to life.
10. Kelly Reichardt
With 27 awards already under her belt, anyone should be excited to watch her upcoming projects.
She is set to write and direct the film Showing Up starring Michelle Williams. It follows an artist who has an upcoming exhibition show amidst the normal chaos of her life.
Her minimalist, but unique and effective, way of telling stories has been piquing people's interests since her first screenplay in 1994 and will only continue to develop and grow into more incredible projects.
11. Lulu Wang
This woman can do it all. She has director, producer, writer, and even music department credits.
Coming up, she is directing and producing a TV series Expats, which follows a group of expatriates living in Hong Kong.
She is set to direct and produce another project as well, but it has yet to be named or for a plot to be released. But, given what she has done so far, we should all be looking forward to these projects and adding them to our watchlists.
12. Chloé Zhao
Coming off an Oscar win for her film Nomadland (2020), she is the director and a writer for an upcoming Marvel movie Eternals set for release on November 5, 2021.
The story is supposed to focus on a group of celestial and immortal beings, the Eternals. Many fans, myself included, are excited to see the actual premise of the movie since it has endless possibilities.
She is definitely a woman to keep up with because she is only going to keep making good movies and probably winning many more awards.
As women are (finally) becoming more and more prominent in Hollywood, it is important that people especially support their projects since they're already coming out at a disadvantage to those from their male counterparts.
The only way to promote real change is to promote equality in Hollywood between male and female film creators is to give more room for women to tell their stories.