Secondary research on box office statistics

I decided that i wanted to find out what the top 10 films in the box office were in 1985 and then compare them with the top 10 films in 2005 (20 years on) and see if the majority of them had males or females as leads. This would then show me that either the public prefers films that have mainly men/women, that men/women are more successful in the film industry in comparison to the other, or show me that times have changed over the last 20 years in terms of the types of actors cast and how successful they are.

1985:
The top 10 films of the box office in 1985 were (in order of 1- 10): Back to the future, Rambo:First Blood Part two, Rocky IV, The Color Purple, Out of Africa, Cocoon, The Jewel Of the Nile, Witness, The Goonies and Spies Like Us. Out of these, i used the Internet Movie Database (www.IMDB.com) to research the leading roles in each film. I discovered that 9 out of the 10 films were male dominated roles, and that one can be argued as a female role (Out of Africa staring Meryl Streep). Sylvester Stallone was popular, having been the male lead in the 2nd and 3rd most popular film at box office, as well as Michael J. Fox and Michael Douglas staring in lead roles. The genres of this films seem more for males, and not as versitile as some of the genres we know today. A lot of them were to do with gadgets, fighting and detective work, unlike the fun comedy and 'girly' films we know of today.

2005:
The top 10 films of the box office in 2005 were: Star Wars three, The Chronicals of Narnia, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, War of the Worlds, King Kong, Wedding Crashers, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Batman begins, Madagascar and Mr and Mrs Smith. Already, you can see a much more diverse genre here, in comparison to 1985. I would say that 5 films have a male lead role, and that the other 5 of them both have a lead male and a lead female, which could show a slight improvement of women in film now in comparison to 20 years ago. The most obvious example from the title of this film would probably be Mr and Mrs Smith, as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie star alongside eachother, and the woman gets to do as much shooting as the man does! Also, King Kong was shared between Hollywood stars Jack Black and Naomi Watts, although could be deemed as a sterotypical portrayal of women, much like Star Wars, where even though Natalie Portman stars as one of the main characters, a lot of the fighting is left up to the male characters, i.e. Ewan McGregor. Most of these films seem to come from books/comics (Harry potter, Chronicals of Narnia, Batman and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.)

Overall, I have found out that in 1985, the box office was slightly overtaken by the male actors overulling the females, however, in 2005 it is not that much different, however, females have been cast along side males in slighty more films 20 years on. I think that cinema still think that its the mens job to do all the fighting in films and become the hero, however, even though 2005 was mainly a year for Johnny Depp, Daniel Radcliff, and Tom Cruise, it was still a year for Angelina Jolie alongside Mr and Mrs Smith, and Natalie Portman alongside Ewan McGregor.
These figures prove that male leads are popular with audiences, or make a movie seem better in some way and therefore gain a lot of viewers, and that women have risen up in 20 years to claim some of the fame alongside male actors, making them more well known and successful too, in comparison to 1985, where the genres were not as broad and the female actrises not as well known.
I wil next do some institutional detailed research on the studios that created the top 10 films.