Bill Wheeler has written screenplays for six produced motion pictures. His filmography includes the 2016 Disney release Queen of Katwe starring David Oyelowo and Lupita N’yongo; The Reluctant Fundamentalist directed by Mira Nair and starring Rizwan Ahmed; The Hoax directed by Lasse Hallstrom, and The Prime Gig featuring Ed Harris. Queen of Katwe was runner-up for the People’s Choice award at the 2016 Toronto Film Festival and won four NAACP Image Awards. For his work on Katwe, Bill was the recipient of the Christopher Award for feature film in 2016. 

Currently, Bill is adapting White Night based on Deborah Layton’s memoir about her time in the People’s Temple. White Night will be released by Film Nation in 2018. He is also collaborating with director Luca Guadagnino on his untitled Sri Lanka project which will feature Benedict Cumberbatch, Jake Gyllenhall and Michelle Williams. 

In television, Bill has worked as a consulting producer on Showtime’s Ray Donovan. He is additionally writing a limited series adaptation of Norman Mailer’s novel Harlot’s Ghost for F/X network. Bill has mentored filmmakers from around the globe through the Sundance Institute’s Feature Film Lab in Utah and the Maisha Film Lab in Kampala, Uganda. 

He has advised at Sundance International Labs in Jordan, Turkey, Japan and Greece and served as artistic director of Sundance’s 2013 Lab in Mumbai, India. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.