Female-Driven Lucy Beating Male-Driven Hercules At Box Office

Who says action movies with a female lead can’t deliver at the box office? Despite Hollywood executives clinging to that old adage as an excuse as to why moving forward on something like a Wonder Woman movie is challenging, the movie-going public is proving that female-driven action movies can and do deliver big money at the box office.

If the success of Jennifer Lawrence’s Hunger Games franchise wasn’t enough to change the mind of Hollywood executives, then maybe Scarlett Johansson’s Lucy will be. On Friday, Lucy led the box office with $17 million, and the film is projected to win the weekend box office with a $42 million to $45 million take.

What’s particularly telling about Lucy’s success is that it opened against a big-budget male-driven action movie, featuring one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood. Dwayne Johnson’s Hercules had a $11 million Friday, and the film is projected to take second place at the weekend box office with a $28 million to $30 million total.

With a female-driven action movie beating a major male-driven action movie in head-to-head competition, could it inspire Hollywood executives to move forward with more female-driven action movies? One can only hope that Warner Bros. will finally announce the much-rumored Wonder Woman movie at their Hall H panel at San Diego Comic-Con today.

And we also have to assume if the Marvel executives are looking at the box office numbers that Scarlet Johansson put up in Lucy that the idea of a solo Black Widow movie is probably looking much better to them this morning.