By After twenty years in the film and TV production business, production company Participant is closing its doors. Company founder Jeff Skoll broke the news to around 100 staff on Tuesday.
Almost all of Participant’s employees will be dismissed and no new content development or production will be pursued. A holding company overseeing the Participant library of the 135 films and five TV series it has made will remain.
The company co-produced or co-financed a number of notable movies including best picture Oscar winners “Spotlight” and “Green Book”. They broke through in 2005 with George Clooney’s “Good Night, and Good Luck,” Niki Caro’s “North Country” and Stephen Gaghan’s “Syriana”.
They followed that with the breakthrough documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” Peter Berg’s “Deepwater Horizon,” Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” and “The Post,” Stephen Chbosky’s “Wonder,” Tate Taylor’s “The Help,” Steven Soderbergh’s “Contagion,” John Madden’s “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” JC Chandor’s “A Most Violent Year,” Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma,” Shaka King’s “Judas and the Black Messiah,” Todd Haynes’ “Dark Waters” and the Ava DuVernay’s series “When They See Us”.
Skoll said in a letter to staff: “I founded Participant with the mission of creating world-class content that inspires positive social change, prioritizing impact alongside commercial sustainability. Since then, the entertainment industry has seen revolutionary changes in how content is created, distributed and consumed.”
On top of the seizmic shift to streaming, strikes and overall economic factors, the plain fact is movies for adults are fewer and far between.
Over its run Participant has won 21 Oscars, 18 Emmys and grossed more than $3.3 billion at the worldwide box office. They remain involved in a handful of projects such as the currently in post-production series “Interior Chinatown” with Jimmy O. Yang.
Source: Variety
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