This past week, Gillian Flynn, writer of the book and screenplay for “Gone Girl,” agreed to sign on as the writer for Steve McQueen’s new film. The film is based on the old television series “Widows” and is essentially based around a group of women who take up their dead husbands’ jobs after a failed heist.

This will obviously be a female-dominated action film, and it made me realize just how few of those there are. I mean, sure, I knew that the skew of male action heroes to female action heroines is 100 to 1. But I realized that the films that star females as action heroines are extremely small.

What I mean by that is there are a decent amount of female characters, such as Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, or Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique, that appear in action films, but very few of them can be considered the main characters. In Johansson’s case, the stars are her male counterparts even though she’s just as much an Avenger as they are. In Lawrence’s case, she is often overshadowed by Hugh Jackman as Wolverine or one of the other X-Men. Very few action films that are written or produced have a female lead as a star.

Financially, this does not make sense. Female-driven action films gross just as much as male-driven action films. The ever-popular “The Hunger Games” series starring the aforementioned Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen made more money than most other action series. The “Kill Bill” series starring Uma Thurman made north of $300 million. Of course female-driven actions films have had their flops (I’m looking at you, “Lucy”), but so have male-driven action films. Studios should have just as much incentive to make female-driven action films as their male counterparts. The reason is not based on profit.

Some argue that it is because almost every action film is written by a male. And these men write about what they know: men. Arguably the two biggest male action film series, both the “Bourne” series and “The Fast and the Furious” series, have been written entirely by males. However, sometimes men can also write a good female action heroine and get that film made. Take the two examples I said earlier, “Kill Bill” and he “The Hunger Games.” Both have strong female characters as the lead, but both were written by men.

No, the reason female action films are not made as much as male action films is that it is easier to market a male action film over a female action film because of gender stereotypes.

In a male action film, all you need to market is explosions and gunfire. For female action films, the trailers usually revolve around either her love interest or why she is engaging in violence. Gender stereotypes make the population think that women should not act like action heroes unless she is motivated by a love interest or has supernatural powers. In the rare case when they do not follow this schematic, the film usually thrives. Essentially, the only way society can accept females being heroes is by an outside force. Men on the other hand can have any number of reasons. Revenge is a popular one, but there’s also to protect his family or just because he does not like someone. It is a gross double standard that Hollywood has fallen into.

But the future looks bright.

As I said earlier, Gillian Flynn is teaming up with Steve McQueen for a revenge action film starring females. “Terminator: Genisys” is starring Emilia Clarke alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger. The sequel to this previous summer’s smash hit “Guardians of the Galaxy” is slated to improve upon Zoe Saldana’s Gamora character, which is one of the titular roles. There is even a reboot to the popular comedy-action “Ghostbusters” that stars an entire female cast. It seems that the role of action heroine is going to become much more popular, at least in the next 24 months or so.

The flipside to that is there are going to be at least one if not two male-driven action films for every female on that is released. There is no easy way to rectify this masculine skew. As stated earlier, this has little to do with how much money the films draw in. The problem does not lie with us as the consumers, it lies with us as a society.

Once it becomes commonplace that a female action heroine can have just as little reason to go on a brutal killing streak as her male counterpart, that is when it will stop being an issue. The only way to stop the problem of sexism of heroes is by making more action films that star females.