New Zealand-born Niki Caro, whose new movie The Zookeeper's Wife opens next weekend, was recently announced as the director of Disney's forthcoming live-action femake of Mulan. Assuming all goes according to plan, she will be just the fourth woman to solo direct a live-action film with a budget of at least $100 million. Here's the full list:
Kathryn BigelowFilm: K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)
How Many Films She Made Prior To Getting a $100m Budget:4
Patty JenkinsHow Many Films She Made Prior To Getting a $100m Budget: 2
Ava DuVernayFilm: A Wrinkle in Time (2018)
How Many Films She Made Prior To Getting a $100m Budget: 5 (plus a lot of TV)
Niki CaroHow Many Films She Made Prior To Getting a $100m Budget: 6 (plus a lot of TV)
Of the honor of joining this club, Caro told The Frame, ""[It] feels really good, actually. I'm really excited to flex the filmmaking muscle at a budget of that size and movie of that scale. I want to kick that door open so hard so that legions of other female directors can race through it. And we can only do that by making these movies really successful." Caro comes to this moment in her career after a decade of working in TV before breaking through to film with 2002's Whale Rider which led to movies like North Country (2005) and McFarland USA ( 2015).
Incidentally, here are 4 male directors - the first 4 that come to mind since there are oddly so many of them - who made one tiny movie and were then handed a movie with a budget well north $100m:
Colin TrevorrowFirst Film: Safety Not Guaranteed (Budget: $4.4m)
Second Film: Jurassic World (Budget: $150m )
Marc WebbFirst Film: (500) Days of Summer (Budget: $7.5m)
Second Film: The Amazing Spider-Man (Budget: $230m )
Jordan Vogt-RobertsFirst Film: The Kings of Summer (Budget: $1.3m )
Second Film: Kong: Skull Island (Budget: $185m)
Gareth EdwardsFirst Film: Monsters (Budget: $500K )
Second Film: Godzilla (Budget: $160m)
Sources: The Frame, BoxOfficeMojo
