Founder & CEO of WunderLyon Labs | Futurist | Strategy & Operations Executive | Investor | Board Member | Producer
I love Kamala Avila-Salmon ‘s note here on how business models really impact diversity and inclusion. For example, entertainment companies that take multiple smaller bets on emerging directors vs two huge bets only on established directors changes the risk profile and can lead to dramatically more diverse and inclusive films. Check out her comments and the linked article. This applies to the venture capital / entrepreneurship world too on why we need to be investing in diverse startups especially in the early stages to get them off the ground. Where else do we need to think about how the business models need to change?
I can’t echo this loudly enough. There are so many ways in which Hollywood’s current obsession with 9-digit IP-driven tentpole hopefuls is bad for our business but let’s unpack it from an inclusion perspective. It is absolutely TERRIBLE for building a more diverse and inclusive film business. Having worked in a role focused on gate-opening for filmmakers from historically-excluded and under-hired backgrounds for over 3 years now, I can tell you that getting the studio system to say yes to people who haven’t ever directed a feature before is very difficult. The money we spend is real and when you’re a public company, that money is highly scrutinized. While it seems reasonable to be cautious about spending money as safely as you can, the history of the demographics of film directors tells us that if we just hire directors who have already directed studio features as a means of spending money “wisely”, we will hire White male directors 90% of the time. Which is exactly why we have done, year after year, after year, whilst making earnest pledges to do better. It isn’t working. 99% of the directors that Hollywood has ever given a $100m+ film to direct are White men. If that’s 1 of the 15-20 movies you make a year, that could be okay. But when that’s 50% of the movies that get made each year by major studios and each studio is making fewer movies per year, it’s very problematic for progress. At the same time, the most impactful lever on how inclusive a film will become is the identity of the director. Female, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and/or disabled directors build more inclusive movies, tell stories about underrepresented communities, hire more diverse people in front of and behind the camera, etc etc etc. This is one of the few places where trickle-down theories actually hold. Now it is *very* hard to convince even the most committed gate-opener to give an untested director $50M+ for a movie. I mean, I probably wouldn’t do it. But $5-10m movies? That’s a more tolerable risk for most studios. Under $5m? Even better. History shows that when we take more shots, we’re more willing to spread it out a bit and that’s how new voices get in. Now it doesn’t happen automatically and this isn’t the post where I share the data that shows that even in lower budget films, Hollywood isn’t hiring nearly enough underrepresented filmmakers. But it’s a critical part of solving the problem. It’s the part I’m most passionate about these days in a few different ways for a few different reasons. Driven, excited, and committed to finding the next Cord and to bet on their great ideas. Let’s go!
