Female Screenwriters Create Female-Led Genre Production Company Known Universe

In an effort to help “open doors at genre work” for women, three scriptwriters have teamed up to create a new production company. Known Universe is the name of the company, and it was started by Lindsey Beer, Nicole Perlman, and Geneva Robertson-Dworet, whose collective credits include Sierra Burgess Is a Loser, Chaos Walking, Captain Marvel, Detective Pikachu, and Guardians of the Galaxy.

As only a small handful of genre writers are female, these women thought things should change. Perlman said, “We thought it is crazy that there are no genre-specific production companies led entirely by women.”

According to THR, Known Universe will focus on telling new genre features from a female perspective with hopes of “expanding the idea of who a genre writer is.” This new company will also allow the three writers to serve as writer-producers. This capacity will hopefully allow them to avoid having too many cooks in the kitchen as Robertson-Dworet said, “The more names on the front of the script, the worse the script is.”

Because of their experiences being hired to rewrite giant messes, the trio of writers has not brought in any outside executives. Nor has Known Universe signed any exclusive first-look deals. The reason is noted by Perlman, “We are trying to stay lean and mean and not gather a ton of overhead.”

I want to wish Beer, Perlman, and Robertson-Dworet the best of luck, and I hope we see great things from Known Universe.