FutureFemmes: The female movers & shakers of Hollywood this week

This week’s FutureFemme still finds pockets of progress inside an industry that keeps shifting its own goalposts. New series, leadership moves, and franchise expansions continue to place women and trans talent at the center of the conversation, even when the wider numbers tell a more mixed story.

Strike a Pose: New FX series gets record number of trans actors

In a victory for diversity warriors, Ryan Murphy’s new series Pose over at FX is to have five trans actors attached to its main cast. The new cast members include MJ Rodriguez, Indya Moore, Dominique Jackson, Hailie Sahar, and Angelica Ross. Pose is to be an examination of eighties Manhattan, contrasting glitzy penthouses and showboating ballrooms. Executive producer Steven Canals said the show will focus “on the unique and under-told experiences of trans women and gay people of color” in the city. Pose’s pilot begins production this November. It’s about time a series explored some of these corners of society into which television has so far barely ventured.

The completed run delivered exactly that. Pose aired three seasons on FX from 2018 to 2021 and closed with the same core ensemble intact. Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, Indya Moore, Dominique Jackson, Hailie Sahar, and Angelica Ross carried the narrative across ball culture, the AIDS crisis, and corporate ambition without softening any edges. The series proved the original casting bet was not a one-off gesture; it became a benchmark for sustained trans and queer visibility on network television.

Keeping up with the Kardashians renewed again, world domination plans made apparent

The television monolith Keeping up with the Kardashians has been renewed by E! through to 2020. The reality show, focusing on the Hollywood family famous for being famous, has reportedly cost the network just under $100m. Families don’t come cheap! Having recently celebrated its tenth year anniversary, Keeping up with the Kardashians has been both parodied and imitated by countless other shows. At some point, it’s inevitable Keeping up with the Kardashians will follow one of the family members’ journey into the Oval Office. We, for the record, welcome our new Kardashian overlords. Kanye can play the inauguration. It’ll be amazing, sweeties.

The original series wrapped after twenty seasons in June 2021. All twenty seasons plus select spin-offs now stream on Hulu beginning February 2026, sitting alongside the ongoing Hulu Original The Kardashians. The move consolidates the entire universe in one place and keeps the brand’s cultural footprint intact long after the E! run ended.

Amazon Studios implodes, forced to put women in charge (gasp)

Elsewhere in the realm of reality television, Amazon Studios’ unscripted division was overthrown in a coup d’femme by Heather Schuster. The reality TV veteran, who has worked on stuff like American Idol and is probably the only reason Ryan Seacrest continues to work, is ascending right up the hierarchy of Amazon as scandals and other nastiness floods male higher-ups out of the company. Amazon famously snapped up the Top Gear trio in The Grand Tour as part of their unscripted lineup. The rise of women was a predictable consequence of the cleanse Hollywood is experiencing right now. Among the recent tsunami of bombshell allegations, a competent and well-experienced person being put in charge is a pocket of good news.

Schuster’s appointment arrived in 2017 and lasted less than a year. She exited the role in 2018. The short tenure underlined how quickly studio leadership can change when external pressure mounts, yet it also marked one of the first visible corrections inside Amazon’s unscripted ranks at a moment when male executives were departing in quick succession.

First female Doctor’s TARDIS team unveiled

Jodie Whittaker’s TARDIS team was shown off to the world this week. The 13th incarnation of Doctor Who (or 14th if you count John Hurt, or actually 17th if you cou—) is getting a whole ensemble of characters added to the police box. Joining Jodie Whittaker throughout time & space will be Bradley Walsh (Graham), Tosin Cole (Ryan), and Mandip Gil (Yasmin). The whole spectrum is being represented, including boring old white guy. Yay, diversity! Whittaker is an absolute storm of an actor with a proper lush Northern lilt. We simply haven’t had enough Northerners behind the TARDIS controls, and it’s an absolute gift to get a proper Yorkshire lass like her alongside her super slick team.

Whittaker’s run spanned 2018 through 2022. The companions Graham, Ryan, and Yasmin stayed with her for the full arc, giving the era a consistent ensemble feel rare in recent Doctor Who history. The quartet handled time-travel stakes, family drama, and quiet character beats with equal weight before Whittaker regenerated and the team stepped away together.

Women Directors Hit New Lows in 2025 Top Films

Industry data released in 2026 shows the gains for female directors on major studio releases have reversed. Only nine women directed among the 2025 top 100 grossing films, an 8.1 percent share. The USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative and Celluloid Ceiling report both recorded 13 percent women directors across the top 250 films for the same year, down from the previous period. The drop arrives amid studio consolidation and shifting corporate priorities around diversity initiatives.

Trans and Queer Representation Evolves on 2025 TV

The record set by Pose continues to echo. Laverne Cox leads the comedy Clean Slate on Prime Video, while multiple 2025 series feature trans characters and talent in front of and behind the camera. GLAAD and Autostraddle roundups tracked sustained visibility across network, cable, and streaming platforms. The pipeline that once felt experimental now supports recurring roles and full series centered on trans and queer lives.

Hulu Becomes the New Home for the Full Kardashian Universe

February 2026 brought every season of Keeping Up with the Kardashians and its major spin-offs to Hulu in one block. The move pairs the complete original run with the ongoing Hulu Original The Kardashians, giving the franchise a permanent streaming address after its E! conclusion. Viewers can now trace the family’s documented decade-plus in a single destination rather than hunting across platforms.

Power Lists Spotlight Women Leaders Across Entertainment in 2026

Recognition lists continue to track influence at scale. The Hollywood Reporter published its annual Women in Entertainment Power Lists covering the United States, Canada, and India in 2026. ESSENCE held its Black Women in Hollywood ceremony the same year, honoring executives, producers, and performers whose work spans film, television, and music. The lists function as both snapshot and scoreboard for the women shaping current studio and network decisions.

Margot Robbie takes on the world of figure skating in I, Tonya

This week we were able to witness a proper show of Margot Robbie in the upcoming biopic I, Tonya in a gift of a trailer. The film follows the life, trials, and tribulations of Tonya Harding, a metaphorically towering figure in figure-skating history. Tonya accomplished a great deal – such as being the first woman to complete a triple axel in competition – but her life has been defined by an incident of attack on a fellow skater. Robbie shows off the complexity working underneath Tonya pretty clearly in the trailer. A likely knockout flick from the Suicide Squaddie.

I, Tonya opened in 2017 and earned Robbie a Best Actress Oscar nomination. The performance remains a reference point ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympics, where figure-skating storylines in media continue to circle back to Harding’s career and the film’s take on it.

Bad Boys spinoff to have 100% less boys?

While Bad Boys III rests in development limbo, and Will Smith is off doing fantasy epics for Netflix (Bright), Bruckheimer Productions is apparently moving ahead with a TV spinoff centering on Gabrielle Union’s character from Bad Boys II. Gabrielle played Agent Sydney “Syd” Burnett in the action sequel and has grabbed huge projects like Being Mary Jane since. You should never send boys to do a woman’s job: the project is still fresh in development, but here’s hoping Good Girls (FD’s internal working title) lands on the silver screen in no time. FutureFemme is brought to you in association with FutureFemmeFest

The spinoff evolved into L.A.’s Finest, which premiered in 2019 with Gabrielle Union and Jessica Alba sharing the lead. The series ran two seasons on Spectrum before cancellation in 2020. Union’s Syd Burnett remained the anchor character, turning the project from speculation into a completed run that extended the Bad Boys universe without Will Smith at the center.