--- description: Find out why Donna Langley is one of the 100 most influential people of 2024. title: Donna Langley: The 100 Most Influential People of 2024 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt99f77bb257e9e740/698a558fb21a9c4aa9509dcf/time-100-2024-donna-langley.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Apr 17, 2024 # Donna Langley by Jordan Peele  Sane Seven—The Sunday Times/News Licensing A movie is never a sure thing. Doesn’t matter who’s in it, who’s making it, the script, or the budget; it’s almost impossible to predict what film will be good or successful or both. This tension means that most people you meet in Hollywood are driven first and foremost by fear. This fear can be poisonous. Donna Langley doesn’t operate from a place of fear. She doesn’t make decisions based on fear. She makes decisions based on trust, strategy, compassion, and a deep love of film. As NBCUniversal studio group chair and chief content officer, she’s not afraid to take bold risks—whether it’s a $100 million drama about a [theoretical physicist](https://time.com/6295742/oppenheimer-review/ "undefined") or a [horror film](https://time.com/4680563/get-out-movie-review/ "undefined") about a Black man being trapped by his white girlfriend’s parents. She has a talent for trusting odd pitches with a strange prophetic confidence. And that confidence is contagious. So much of who she is and the grace with which she carries herself is defined by that confidence. Donna’s presence always seems to remind and assure that at the end of the day, despite what many in this town may think, movies are not actually the most important thing in the world. That sense of real values makes all the difference. _Peele is an Oscar-winning filmmaker_ _Order your copy of the 2024 TIME100 issue_ [_here_](https://magazineshop.us/TIME%5F100 "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2024/6964923/donna-langley/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2024/6964923/donna-langley/"},"headline":"Donna Langley","datePublished":"2024-04-17T11:03:48.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T00:29:16.837Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2024/6964923/donna-langley/","keywords":["TIME100","franchise","Magazine","Special Project","sponsorshipblock","Accolades","2024TIME100","T100Titans2024"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt99f77bb257e9e740/698a558fb21a9c4aa9509dcf/time-100-2024-donna-langley.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt99f77bb257e9e740/698a558fb21a9c4aa9509dcf/time-100-2024-donna-langley.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2024/6964923/donna-langley/","name":"Donna Langley"}}]}] ```