The theatrical releases that saw the highest median return on investment in 2023 were those whose casts reflected racial representation proportionate to the real-world U.S. population, according to the latest Hollywood Diversity Report from UCLA.
Horror movies like M3GAN (14.0 ROI) and Saw X (7.5 ROI) were among the films whose casts were 41 to 50 percent BIPOC, the category with the highest median ROI (1.1). Conversely, the category with the lowest ROI (-0.25) was the least diverse (less than 11 percent BIPOC cast). According to U.S. census data, 43.6 percent of the country in 2023 was BIPOC.
Proportionately representative movies also earned a median of $114.2 million worldwide, the second highest median box office take behind only movies whose casts were 31 to 40 percent BIPOC ($119.8 million). That latter category included the billion-dollar Barbie ($1.4 billion, to be exact), which won the worldwide box office in 2023. The lowest-earning category was again the least diverse, with a median of just $18.2 million globally.
Women comprised the majority of moviegoers on the opening weekend of Barbie (69 percent) as well as two other movies in the top 10, The Little Mermaid (68 percent) and Elemental (54 percent). The latter two films also had majority BIPOC audiences, who overall drove opening weekend sales for seven of the top 10 and 14 of the top 20 highest-grossing movies of 2023. Every movie in the top 10 worldwide grosses had a cast that was at least 31 percent BIPOC except Oppenheimer (11-20 percent), which had a majority white and majority male audience on opening weekend.
“After examining global and domestic box office success and audience demographics for more than a decade, we have repeatedly found that people want to see films that reflect the diversity that exists in their communities and in the world,” said report co-founder Ana-Christina Ramón, who directs UCLA’s Entertainment and Media Research Initiative, in a statement.
The report, now in its 11th year, also ranked the top theatrical releases according to specific audience shares on opening weekend. For example, the movie with the highest Black audience share was The Color Purple (69 percent), while Asians drove turnout for Joy Ride and Latinos for Insidious: The Red Door. The vast majority of people watching The Boys in the Boat were white (81 percent), Bottoms scored with the age 18-34 crowd (78 percent), Native turnout peaked for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (8 percent) and the most male audience-driven movie was a Finnish-American historical action thriller called Sisu (71 percent). Meanwhile, what movie had the most women in seats opening weekend? Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (79 percent), natch.
But film employment is not keeping pace with the diversifying audience. Women, BIPOC and disabled movie characters remained underrepresented compared to their real-world numbers, as were women and BIPOC directors and writers. Budgets of $100 million or more were given to 17 movies helmed by white men, 10 by BIPOC directors and just one by a white woman – Greta Gerwig, whose movie made the most money of them all.
