Reigning; The 30 women who take over Hollywood

Pitch Perfect

After a turbulent past year, the call for more female power, representation, and diversity in film is louder than ever. ELLE joins the conversation with our map of where women in Hollywood are making it happen, and where there's still room to grow.

It's been a year since the infamous Sony hacks—the deluge of damning internal data from Sony Pictures Entertainment, personal information about employees and their families, incriminating e-mails between studio executives, information about said executives' salaries, copies of unreleased films, etc.—flooded the Internet. What they showed in our part of the world was that it's not over, folks; there's a long way to go toward equality for women in Hollywood. Beyond learning that many of the industry's top actresses were being severely underpaid in relation to their male counterparts (as was the case with Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams, compared with their American Hustle costars Bradley Cooper and Christian Bale), we also learned that of Sony studio's 17 seven-figure earners, almost all were white, and only one, Amy Pascal, was female. Speaking of Pascal, the former co-chairperson of the motion-picture group at Sony and one of the most powerful women in Hollywood, she took the biggest hit, getting fired from the company while many of the men embroiled in the scandal got nary a slap on the wrist.

But if there's a break in the clouds, it's that the facts that came to light not only spurred conversation for higher pay, better roles, and greater diversity behind and in front of the camera, but they kept it going beyond red carpets and award-show podiums. Thus, ELLE is using the occasion of our annual Women in Hollywood Power List to contextualize power as it truly exists among the women doing the deals, scoring the material, writing the screenplays, raising the money, casting, dressing, and directing the actresses, opening the movies, and, yes, running the studios.

Elizabeth Gabler, President, Fox 2000

She's not only signed a three-year deal with Nina Jacobson (co-producer of The Hunger Gamesfranchise), she also tapped The Fault in Our Stars and Paper Towns author John Green for an exclusive first-look producing agreement, proving she's keen on emerging talent in the highly bankable YA genre.

Nancy Utley, Co-President, Fox Searchlight

Utley, who's helmed this established indie within a studio for six years, scored wins in 2014 withBirdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel. In 2015, Searchlight's roster includes Demolition, with Jake Gyllenhaal and Naomi Watts, and Brooklyn, already garnering awards buzz for star Saoirse Ronan.

Kathleen Kennedy, President, Lucasfilm

She's an eight-time Oscar nominee, but big box office is nice too, and this Christmas Kennedy is responsible for what is likely to be the biggest box-office hit of all: Star Wars: The Force Awakens, opening worldwide mid-December.

Stacey Snider, Co-Chairman, 20th Century Fox

All eyes are on Snider and what she'll accomplish at Fox, two years after leaving DreamWorks Studios. Under her guidance, Fox's upcoming Oscar bait includes the Matt Damon–led The Martian,Jennifer Lawrence's Joy, and The Revenant, starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

Terry Press, President, CBS Films

Known and respected for championing projects for, by, and starring women, Press had a surprise hit with The Duff earlier this year. She also tapped Jessie Nelson (I Am Sam) to direct this season's holiday comedy Love The Coopers (starring the cool girl, Diane Keaton).

Hannah Minghella, President, TriStar Productions

In the Sony shuffle, she shifted from Columbia to TriStar—but expect Minghella to inject much-needed energy into the less flashy studio with films like The Rosie Project, starring Jennifer Lawrence.

Melissa McCarthy, Actress

The star of The Heat, Spy, and the upcoming all-female Ghostbusters reboot was third (at $23 million) only to Jennifer Lawrence and Scarlett Johansson on Forbes's highest-paid-actresses list.

Amy Schumer, Comedian/Actress

Inside Amy Schumer put her on the map; with last summer's Judd Apatow–directed Trainwreck, which she wrote, she became a force majeure in Hollywood. (See page 294.)

Nancy Meyers, Writer/Director

She makes movies that women love: Her last four—which included It's Complicated and Something's Gotta Give—together have grossed almost half a billion dollars. Her latest, The Intern with Anne Hathaway, again features a strong, complex, feminist female lead.

Elizabeth Banks, Actress/Director

Banks has brains, beauty, and balls. She produced Pitch Perfect (with her Brownstone Productions company) and directed Pitch Perfect 2, the $184 million–grossing sequel. She's now in talks to produce and direct Sony's remake of Charlie's Angels.

Scarlett Johansson, Actress

The fun, frenetic Lucy and the Avengers franchise—both box-office busters—have made Johansson into a bona fide action hero. How cool is that?

Charlize Theron, Actress

Watching her kick all kinds of ass in Mad Max: Fury Road was awesome. Even more awesome: after the pay disparity between the sexes was revealed during the Sony hack, her fight for and winning a bigger payday for her next movie, The Huntsman, with Chris Hemsworth.

Diane Nelson, President, DC Entertainment

With a full slate of buzzworthy DC Comics films over the next few years—including Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, starring Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill—she's giving Marvel serious comics competition.

Amanda Silver, Screenwriter

Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and Jurassic World all sprang from Silver's fevered brain. James Cameron has tapped her to write his second and third Avatar sequels.

Michelle MacLaren, Director

She made her bones helming TV series like Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, and Game of Thrones. And though she walked away from the Wonder Woman movie, she's got the pick of scripts for her big-screen debut.

The Warner Bros. Pictures Trifecta: Sue Kroll, President, Worldwide Marketing and Distribution, Veronika Kwan Vandenberg, President, Worldwide Distribution, Blair Rich, Executive Vice President, Worldwide Marketing

Overseen by Kroll, these women maximized global revenue for WB's biggest hits of the year (Mad Max: Fury Road, Magic Mike XXL), as well as award contenders like Black Mass, with Johnny Depp, and In the Heart of the Sea, starring Chris Hemsworth.

Megan Colligan, President of Worldwide Distribution and Marketing, Paramount Pictures

In 2014 Colligan was promoted to the top marketing studio job where she spearheaded efforts for franchise properties Transformers and Mission: Impossible, and for Academy Award–nominated films like Selma and The Wolf of Wall Street.

Megan Ellison, Annapurna Pictures

With no fewer than nine upcoming films attached to her name, including Joy (the return of dream team David O. Russell, Jennifer Lawrence, and Bradley Cooper), Ellison's ambition in flick-funding is as formidable as is her taste in projects.

Nina Jacobson, Color Force

The Hunger Games franchise is almost behind her, but Jacobson's upcoming endeavors will be equally epic: She's backing an adaptation of The Odyssey, the movie version of Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, and Richard Linklater's Where'd You Go, Bernadette.

Dede Gardner, Plan B Entertainment

On the heels of their 12 Years a Slave success (Best Picture Oscar in 2014), Gardner, Brad Pitt, and Plan B got Selma made, despite no help from MLK's estate. She's now working on the follow-up to the Pitt-starring World War Z.

Lisa Taback, LTLA CommunicationsThe powerful Sicario, starring Emily Blunt and Benicio Del Toro, rattled—in a good way—the Cannes Film Festival. Taback is going for the same effect on Oscars voters.

Michele Robertson, MRC

Her award roster includes three hot films—Black Mass, Mad Max:Fury Road, and Our Brand Is Crisis—starring three hot stars: Johnny Depp, Charlize Theron, and Sandra Bullock.

Cynthia Swartz, Strategy PR

She took Boyhood from indie darling to award winner. This year she's behind the campaigns for Idris Elba and Beasts of No Nation, as well as Sundance hit The End of the Tour.

Donna Langley, Chairman, Universal Pictures

Almost half of this year's top-10 grossing films were Universal's (including Jurassic World, Pitch Perfect 2, and Minions), netting the company $5.5 billion in global sales at press time.

Ava DuVernay, Director

Despite the Oscar snub for Selma, studios are clamoring to work with DuVernay. Her next project is a "sweeping love story and complex murder mystery" set against Hurricane Katrina.

Jennifer Lawrence, Actress

Despite some public balking at her asking price, she fought for—and succeeded at landing—her first $20 million paycheck, for Sony's sci-fi drama Passengers, with Chris Pratt.