"As for Bigelow, she’s sure to have a few more opportunities than she had before (though probably not as many as a male director in her position would get)."

See, I've read you say this about Bigelow before, but could you justify this please? I'm never sure exactly why you believe she has been held back purely due to her gender, as opposed to the poor films shes made from both a critical/audience stand point since 1991. You also seem to think if a man had her filmography, she'd have had more opportunities. I remember once you used Bryan Singer as an example of a male director who made an average/poor film (Superman Returns) yet has not found himself struggling for jobs. Unfortunately there aren't any female directors with his kind of box office/critical success in even one film to comapre him to. Sure, Bigelow made over $80 Million with Point Break in '91, but followed it with Strange Days which lost almost $35 million between it's budget and gross. It wasn't even a big critical success. Sure, James Cameron was involved, but he followed that up with Titanic, which won enough awards and made enough money to give him jobs for the rest of his life, regardless of their success. Even if Avatar had failed, Titanic would have (somewhat ironicly) kept him afloat. Bigelow's next big project, K19, lost ANOTHER $35 million, and was ANOTHER critical failure! Last year women made lucrative hits like Mama-Mia and Twilight, but as films they were poor. This year we see two critical achievments (Hurt Locker and An Education) but the two haven't come together in a way we can compare with Singer's work. Singer had huge success with his 2 X-Men films, was a huge factor in the foundations of House MD in 2004 and Superman Returns MADE over $100 Million! Even if Sup's was a failure in comparison to the studio's hopes, as a film it is still a sucess. Bigelow will hopefully recieve more opportunities, especially if she wins big at the oscars, but if she was a man with the same filmography, "he" would have the same limitations in the eyes of big studios, due to a filmography that, hurt locker included, is weighted more towards failure than success.