The Producers Guild of America held their seventh annual Produced By conference this past weekend at the historic Paramount studios in Hollywood. Produced By has become a signature event for the guild, which has sold out this event for the past several years now. It has also expanded to New York with the inaugural Produced By NY last October to great success.

Many seminars are available for every level of producer and media format, as well as offering plenty of networking opportunities outside the panels that it has become an essential destination for producers around the country. The underlying theme this year seemed to be that diversity works, and Hollywood needs to do more to embrace it. 

PBC has also become an important event for PGA International, who held several events in conjunction with the main event to meet and greet our international associates. Two events of note included a lunch with the Australian delegation from SPAA, and a well attended mixer organized by our China Task Force subcommittee in an effort to bring together those of us with an eye towards the Asian market.

We’ve witnessed the growing influence of Asia and the international market in the past year, with the Chinese box office surpassing the American box office for the first time, and record box offices in Latin America propelling films such as Avengers and Furious 7 well over $1 billion in sales in record time. Key to the success of these films were the collaboration of diverse actors, locations, and co-production companies.

Female audiences showed they are also a force to be reckoned with, coming out in droves for Pitch Perfect 2, while the year’s breakout hit in television, Empire has shown that not only can an African-American themed show succeed, it can also reach across the the color lines and attract white, hispanic, and female audiences.

True diversity is no longer just an idealistic dream, but a power that must be recognized as evident by the strength of the above, and embraced by Hollywood in front of and behind the camera...a lesson Sony learned last week with Aloha, in which even an all white cast couldn’t save from its dismal script.

Perhaps a more diverse cast could have deflected some of the criticism, but its lack instead brought more attention to its already myopic view of America and only served as another reason not to see what was already a troubled production to begin with. When Bradley Cooper and Emma Stone can't even bring in the crowds while Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson can, Hollywood can’t no longer blame soft openings on the inability of white audiences to relate to a minority lead.