Part 9/12:
Despite her advocacy, Witherspoon acknowledges that many female-led films fail at the box office. She highlighted flops like Running Man or Christy, which suffered from stories too narrow or unfamiliar, failing to attract widespread interest—even among women. This points to a recurring problem: persistent underfunding, poor storytelling, or overly narrow targeting restrict success.
She underscores a key insight—that the industry often sabotages itself by not supporting stories with broader appeal and that the underperformance of these films shouldn't be surprising if they lack universal relatability or high-quality execution.