2018 Academy Award winning actress Frances McDormand may be more remembered for her influence outside of Hollywood when it’s all said in done. Last month, WarnerMedia, the parent company of Warner Bros. Entertainment ” became the the first major company in the entertainment industry to adopt a broad-ranging diversity and inclusion policy” thanks in part to the acceptance speech of McDormand. “The goal, according to a statement issued to the media earlier this week, is to make that policy company-wide.” This would include entertainment as well as other fields such as animation, video games, and toys.
The support stems from McDormand’s “inclusion rider” idea which allows actors to add requirements to their contract if they are to accept a role. One such rider gaining traction is that of an “equity rider” “which could potentially shrink the pay gap between male and female actors.”
An example of this has already taken place as WarnerMedia’s “production of Just Mercy, an upcoming film starring Michael B. Jordan and Brie Larson. The statement credited Jordan, an executive producer on the film, in part for the policy’s creation.”
Polygon reached out to Warner Bros. to see how the new inclusion policy will be implemented in its video game projects. They stressed that the announcement of the policy, and its application in the production of Just Mercy, is simply the first step. How and when it will be applied to Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (WBIE), a division of Warner Bros., is unknown at this time.
