Last week I looked at the popularity of various first names in movies over the past two decades. The process involved building up a vast database of acting credits, noting both the gender of the fictional role and of the performer representing them on screen. This led to some readers getting in touc...
TLDR: "Across all genres, a woman at the helm meant more acting roles for women."
This guy's articles are worth the read though - it's from him that I found out that the vast majority (over 90%) of directors never get to make more than one film. Of the remaining 10%, the chance of making another go down with each film, unless you're part of the small group of outliers - the few dudes who are able to regularly output stuff.
I wonder if you only look at directors of films >$50M if that number would be higher. I feel like there are probably a bunch of randos that make a $300k movie and never do anything again.
I think that's part of it. I imagine many of those randos did actually want to make another film though.
The death of the mid-budget movie is probably a contributing factor - either you're shooting on your phone, or suddenly you're supposed to helm a blockbuster, with few stepping stones in between.