Historically, opportunity has been afforded to a limited pool of people, excluding people of color and women. That doesn't diminish the talent or hard work of the people within that pool, but it does narrow the field of stories that have been told, and of the creative ideas and perspectives out there.

This problem [of historical opportunities] compounds itself by limiting the number of people in the pipeline to attain the experience to do larger movies or get jobs so they can familiarize themselves with a studio head and get the opportunity to deliver and impress - or maybe direct a smaller movie. It will take a considerable amount of time to rectify. It's very difficult because it starts at the top.

Historically, opportunity has been afforded to a limited pool of people, excluding people of color and women. That doesn't diminish the talent or hard work of the people within that pool, but it does narrow the field of stories that have been told, and of the creative ideas and perspectives out there.

Well, TV does a better job. In film, the justification has been that movies focused on stories or featuring people of color don't make money.

When you start talking about movies of that size, they're trying to sell globally to foreign markets. So there is an economic question that can't be ignored, and that's a fair discussion to have. But maybe it's not the time to make that movie if you can't depict people accurately.

Having gone through the [Marvel] writer program, I knew Black Panther was in the pipeline and I knew they were big fans of my writing. But I had to compete with the other writers who were put up for it - no one hands out jobs.

I think you try to extrapolate from the early civilizations and cultures of the continent, kind of looking for unique ways they set themselves apart from Western civilizations, and then pursue those avenues technologically and see where that takes you.