You hit on a good point. Movies with women in the lead roles, from what I hear, tend not to do nearly as well at the box office. They tend to be chick flicks if I can use that term. There’s a market and audience for such movies, but they just don’t bring in as much revenue.
So if they don’t bring in as much revenue, where does the money to pay them come from?
Or we could look at the WNBA vs. the NBA. The WNBA attendance, tv ratings, revenues are a small fraction of the NBA. So accordingly, WNBA stars ezrn a fraction of their NBA counterparts.
According to Forbes, the highest paid actor in 2017 was Mark Wahlberg at $68 million.
However, based on this website, Arts and Entertainment sectors only contributes to 5% of GDP - and Hollywood is probably less than that percentage - so in the overall scheme of things, Hollywood isn't all that important.
...though it seems to be a bastion of white, male privilege...