Meet the Mentors Q&A w/ Devon Byers (Heroes & Villains Entertainment)

MARISA MARTINEZ MARQUEZ is a proud Filipina American born and bred in SacTown. Playwright turned screenwriter, her focus on the complications of being Asian while American earned her multiple grants, publications, and awards, including being named 100 Most Influential Filipino Women during her seventeen years in NYC. Her emphasis on representation as a genre writer highlights diverse female leads with supernatural problems who endeavor to do good when there are only bad options.

Marquez is a Roadmap Grand Prize Winner–Coletta Preacely-Garcia Diversity Fellowship and an Unlock Her Potential mentee of Emmy-nominated executive producer Francie Calfo. Along with placing in The Writers Lab, ScreenCraft, PAGE and the Black List & WIF Episodic Lab, her supernatural drama THIRST, about a Filipina teen who inherits the ability to drain water from the living, is on Coverfly’s The Red List. Her series MIND THE GAP, a top BBC Comedy Writers Room contender developed while attending MetFilm School in England, is currently set up with a London-based team. Marquez splits her time between LA and Portland, OR, where she co-hosts the Paranormal POC Podcast, covering the supernatural to the extraterrestrial from the BIPOC diaspora. 

Devon Byers is a Talent & Literary Manager/Producer at Heroes & Villains Entertainment, one of the industry’s leading management and production companies.

At HVE, Devon’s clients sold projects to major studios and platforms including Sony, FX, Warner Bros., Netflix, Discovery, and Tubi. His clients also secured writing and directing positions on film and television shows such as ABBOTT ELEMENTARY, A BLACK LADY SKETCH SHOW, and THE WINCHESTERS, and have been featured as filmmakers at SXSW and on Comic-Con panels. In addition, he represented comic book writers and novelists who have written for publishers including Marvel, DC, IDW, and Legendary.

Devon also created the Digital Division within HVE, representing clients holistically across digital and traditional entertainment.

Prior to HVE, Devon co-founded First Friday Entertainment, a boutique management company focused on representing diverse and underrepresented voices. The company was acquired by HVE in 2022. Earlier in his career, he served as a Development Executive at Ideate Media, where he oversaw literary IP adaptations across live-action and animation, managing scripted development for projects including the BBC America adaptation of Douglas Adams’ DIRK GENTLY’S HOLISTIC DETECTIVE AGENCY starring Elijah Wood.

A former member of the Television Academy, he holds an MFA in Producing from the American Film Institute (AFI). Founded in November 2007, Heroes and Villains Entertainment is a management and production company that represents and celebrates storytellers across the entertainment spectrum.

HVE Clients include SEVERANCE Creator/ Executive Producer Dan Erickson, BLACK CAKE Creator/ Executive Producer Marissa Jo Cerar, THE BOYS Executive Producer David Reed, and THE HUNTING PARTY Creator/ Executive Producer JJ Bailey.