'The Acolyte' Creator Leslye Headland Claims Hollywood Studios Are Rolling Back DEI Projects

The Acolyte creator and showrunner Leslye Headland claims that Hollywood studios are rolling back DEI projects.

In an interview with TheWrap, Headland shared how her production company Shoot to Midnight evolved during Covid. Initially the company was built on promoting “unacknowledged or underrepresented voices in dark comedy.” The company was able to sign a deal with Disney’s 20th Television formerly 20th Century Fox. Given there are only three platforms to pitch to, she noted that it makes it a “pretty narrow to bullseye to hit.”

Then Covid and the strikes came in and “the bullseye got smaller and smaller.” Given the shrinking bullseye, she shifted her company’s focus to be “about crafting relationships and seeking out female writers, specifically television writers, who wanted to get in and sort of break into this industry.”

She continued, “So we had the opportunity, during a very tough time, to continue to foster new talent, and specifically young women who didn’t have the tried and true go-to-market and everybody’s like, “Yes, absolutely!” It was much more of a, “Can you take a chance on somebody who has a great idea and a lot of talent?”

However, she then acknowledged that this kind of DEI promotion, which clearly excludes males, is being rolled back and not promoted as much. She said, “That’s the type of development project that I think people are a bit more wary about than they were in the 2018-2019 era.”

She then gave an example that a project she pitched at the beginning of the year did not pan out, “I came in on a 20th Television property, a known IP, and I pitched that at the top of the year, and it was a great show, great concept, a lot of support internally for it, and I was very grateful for that. But it ended up going a different way and there wasn’t a pickup or greenlight to pilot, and it did feel like, ‘Gosh, a half-hour black comedy with a female lead who’s dealing with existential problems,’ just that bread and butter that I developed both with my films and then also with Russian Doll, that’s a project that, at the height of streaming, would have sold immediately, especially if it had major talent attached to it or a big studio behind it.”

As for why studios are seemingly moving away from DEI projects like Headland’s she pointed to the political landscape, “I did start to feel that when my Star Wars show came out. In 2024, I remember thinking, ‘Oh, gosh, I wish it wasn’t coming out in an election year.’ I think that’s contributed to the move away from DEI hires, and I would say we are not a company that is interested myopically in that.”

While Headland claims DEI projects are being rolled back, there’s nearly a new one announced every single week. As an example, at the end of October it was revealed that the upcoming Lanterns HBO show is about replacing Hal Jordan with John Stewart. Netflix is making a feminist inversion of Alexandre Dumas’ masterpiece The Count of Monte Cristo. Marvel is about to release a race-swapped version of Wonder Man. The upcoming new Harry Potter series at HBO has also race-swapped Severus Snape. The list goes on.

Now, maybe there aren’t as many being greenlit, but there aren’t as many TV shows and films being made either. Covid and the strikes have seen the industry significantly contract over the last couple of years.

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