Hollywood has an inclusivity problem. How is this possible, in 2024, you wonder, when films like King Richard or Sound of Metal or Everything Everywhere All at Once —all nominated for Best Picture Oscars—suggest otherwise. They are films rich in story, dimension, and purpose.
They are also exceptions to a long-established rule: White men still run Hollywood. Women remain almost entirely shut out, compared to their male colleagues, while disabled and Black actors are underrepresented in all major employment arenas for theatrical film, according to UCLA’s most recent Hollywood diversity report . In the face of this, Kamala Avila-Salmon wants better for Hollywood and its storytellers.
Avila-Salmon is the head of inclusive content at Lionsgate Motion Picture Group, where she began her stint in 2020 and has since leveraged her experience as a marketing savant (she has held top-level roles at RCA, Universal Pictures, Google, and Facebook) to shift how the studio makes movies. At Lionsgate, her main directive is simple: to create a creative economy that allows for more attentive storytelling. Stories of magnitude and conviction, yes, but also ones with as much reach as possible.
It begins, she tells me, by having an “audience-first” mindset. This month she launched Story Spark , an online tool that helps creatives understand the limits of their scripts and hiring choices by pushing for inclusivity in all aspects (it resembles a BuzzFeed-style multiple-choice questionnaire).