
Last week on Twitter I was asked about the average director’s career and how many directors get to make a second film.
This was sparked by some research I conducted a while ago on the average careers of British writers, producers and directors, and also by my 2016 study of female directors in UK film. So I promised to return to the topic of directors’ careers and how they differ between male and female directors.
To answer the questions fully, I built up a database of all films made since 1949, worldwide – a whopping 287,448 films. Usually, I focus on films that reach cinemas, but this time I wanted to cast the net as wide as possible and study the levels …