WME is getting behind Inevitable Foundation in an industry push to empower disabled screenwriters in film and TV.
Besides offering unspecified financial support, the Hollywood talent agency will use its TV and motion picture literary agents to increase development and writers room opportunities for entertainment scribes with disabilities.
Inevitable Foundation’s Accelerate Fellows program will enlist creatives on WME’s roster of clients to mentor disabled screenwriters. “There is simply not enough access for writers from underrepresented groups, and that is even more apparent amongst the disabled population,” WME president Ari Greenburg said in a statement on Tuesday.
The goal for WME, a subsidiary of Endeavor, and Inevitable Foundation, co-founded by Richie Siegel and Marisa Torelli-Pedevska, is to get more stories told by disabled screenwriters onto film and TV platforms.
“We are thrilled to partner with WME to help disabled writers build creative power in the film and television industry. Disabled writers represent only 0.15 percent of first-look and overall deals, 3 percent of upper-level television writers, and less than 1 percent of the WGA. Having an industry power broker like WME put their strength behind radically reshaping how the entertainment community values disabled people will make a meaningful difference in this fight,” Siegel and Torelli-Pedevska said in their own joint statement.
Inevitable Foundation as a non-profit works to close the disability representation gap in film and TV writer’s rooms. The foundation notes people with disabilities comprise around 20 percent of the U.S. population, and yet make up under 1 percent of talent working in the industry, leaving a lot of ground to be made up.
Since launching in 2021 with financial support from major studios and networks, Inevitable Foundation has offered grants to disabled screenwriters via its Accelerate Fellowship, Elevate Collective and Elevate for Podcasters programs.
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