The way it works—and I’m only speaking for myself here—is they give you an office and a character. You read all the comics with that character, then you come up with a story you see for that character. You present it, get notes and if everything moves along, you’re greenlit to write the script.
In 2014, Cole wrote a script for a projected movie about the Inhumans.
In 2016, the television series American Crime Story was released. Cole served as co-producer of the first season, The People v. O. J. Simpson, and wrote two episodes, "The Race Card" (for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series, Movie or a Dramatic Special) and "A Jury in Jail".
After writing a "Chinatown-style cop script", Cole was invited to a meeting with Marvel Studios, where he was told that they had plans of doing a movie about the character War Machine. He pitched a story and was chosen to write the film, but, according to him, "they decided, based on what Iron Man 3 was going to be, they weren’t going to do War Machine anymore." Marvel subsequently invited him to join its writer's program.
