It’s not entirely clear when or why Simien left. Landaubut in a Interview with the hollywood reporter from earlier this week, he said that “the last thing they told me was that they loved it, but they needed to put a pin in there until they could find out everyone’s availability.”
Despite that positive feedback, Simien also expressed some concern about his identity as a black, gay man negatively impacting the viability of the projects that it develops for the studies.
“But I can’t help but wonder: ‘Am I too black? Am I too weird? And people just don’t want to say that,’” Simien said. “Because I seem to develop things with these companies and they just never happen for unknown reasons.”