Margot Robbie, Birds of Prey writer Christina Hodson and their respective companies, LuckyChap Entertainment and Hodson Exports, have teamed up to launch a female-driven script-writing programme called the Lucky Exports Pitch Programme (LEPP).
The two have selected six women to participate in a four-week programme that will outline and develop their ideas into studio-ready pitches. The initiative is to come up with original action content which is female-centric, with the aim of demonstrating the participants’ ability to write action.
Another goal of the programme is to “bring the writers the exposure and experience they need in order to become go-to names for studio/franchise jobs,” The Hollywood Reporter quoted the producers as saying. The two companies will produce each project, the goal being to fill a drawer with scripts that can be made for $30 million or under.
The writers gathered for the first time on Tuesday and are supposed to submit their pitches by December 6, 2019. The six selected for LEPP are Sue Chung, Charmaine DeGrate, Eileen Jones, Faith Liu, Dagny Looper and Maria Sten.
Established writers, directors, producers and actors will also join the LEPP for workshops. Among the speakers will be Lindsey Beer, Max Borenstein, Peter Craig, Sue Kroll, Chris Morgan, Chantal Nong, Zak Penn, Geneva Robertson-Dworet, Bek Smith, Chad Stahelski, Oren Uziel and Courtenay Valenti.
"It is no secret that there are more men than women getting hired to write big-budget studio film. And yet, there are a huge number of talented female voices looking to break into this space,” Hodson said. “I have been extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to work on a number of franchise films, alongside great male and female writers. Feature writing has traditionally been a solitary exercise but it doesn’t need to be."
The writer explained her intentions behind initiating the programme, as she called it 'a passion for championing female voices.' Hodson added, "I wanted to create a programme that was as much about peer-to-peer collaboration and community as it is about changing the statistics. Margot and I share a passion for championing female voices and feel that one way to do that is to connect these writers with a wide array of experts in big-budget film-making — men and women alike.”
In a statement, LuckyChap said, “We feel it is both a responsibility and a great honour to help create opportunities for the voices in our industry who are not yet being heard in the big budget action space. We couldn’t be more excited to join these six incredible writers on this journey!”
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