For 20 years, Participant Media has become Hollywood’s preeminent producer of activist entertainment, supporting socially conscious films such as “An Inconvenient Truth,” a climate change cri de coeur, and “Wonder,” about a boy with birth defects. Its films have won 21 Academy Awards.
But the company has never quite done well while also being profitable, at least not consistently. Matt Damon in a fracking drama (“Promised Land,” a 2012 Participant effort) struggles to compete with “Avengers: Infinity War” in 3-D.
On Tuesday, the company’s founder and financial lifeline, eBay billionaire Jeff Skoll, pulled the plug — a decision based, at least in part, on the atrophying entertainment business. Participant relies on studios and streaming services to distribute its content, and those partners are cutting back — especially in the “niche” movies and shows that Participant specializes in — as they battle continued box office weakness, higher production costs and increased profit pressure from Wall Street.
Streaming services like Disney+ and Netflix have started selling ads, and advertisers prefer all-audience, apolitical content. Eat-your-broccoli documentaries and dramas that explore underrepresented communities (both Participant’s sweet spots) are a harder sell.
“The entertainment industry has seen revolutionary changes in how content is created, distributed and consumed,” Mr. Skoll said in an email to Participant employees viewed by The New York Times. A spokesman said Mr. Skoll for an interview.
The participant will immediately lay off most of its 100 employees. A skeleton staff will stay for hours to work on upcoming films such as “Out of My Mind,” about a nonverbal sixth grader with cerebral palsy, and “BLKNWS,” about what what the media leaves out, or misrepresents, in reporting on Black culture.
Mr. Skoll has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Participant since it was founded in 2004. The company, which works with partners like DreamWorks, has seen critical and commercial success with films like “The Help” (2011 ), focused on racial reconciliation, and “Spotlight” (2015), about a newspaper’s investigation into child abuse.
The contestant’s documentary film division is second to none. “An Inconvenient Truth,” released in 2006, still ranks as one of the most successful documentaries in box office history; it cost $1.5 million to make and grossed $50 million. Participant also supported “The Cove,” a chilling 2009 documentary about dolphin hunters, and “RBG,” an affectionate 2018 portrait of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. (Participant was struck in 2021 when longtime president of documentary films, Diane Weyerman, dies of lung cancer.)
The company often operates at a loss. When asked about profitability, the participating executives pursed their lips and were somewhat impatient to explain the concept of a “double bottom line,” meaning performance measured by revenue (the first bottom line) or social return (the second.)
A Participant film that loses money can still be “profitable” if the social impact is big enough, they say. “The Soloist,” starring Jamie Foxx as a homeless musical genius, cost $60 million to make in 2009; it reached $38 million. But it went down as a win in Participant’s books because of an accompanying action campaign involving school curriculum guides and the collection and distribution of 250,000 pairs of jeans to people living on the streets.
Over the past decade, other activism-oriented entertainment entrepreneurs have followed Participant’s lead. Ava DuVernay’s company, Array, describes its mission as “empowering work from Black artists, filmmakers of color and women of all kinds.” Barack and Michelle Obama founded Higher Ground Productions.
Somewhat ironically, the Participant itself rarely gets stronger.
David Linde, a former chairman of Universal Pictures, has been running Participant since 2015. When he arrived, the company was in crisis. Bets on movies like “The Beaver,” which focused on mental health, didn’t pay off. The predecessor of Mr. Linde made the unexpected decision to start a cable channel called Pivot and expand into digital publishing. The company’s head count has grown to nearly 300.
Mr. Linde close Pivot, sharpened the Participant’s social action campaigns and shifted funds toward developing film and television ideas. The result was a series of critical and commercial hits, including “Roma,” a period drama that spotlighted domestic workers, and “Green Book,” a film on racial issues in the form of a travelogue. on the road. “Green Book” won the Oscar for best picture in 2019; it cost $23 million and sold $322 million in tickets worldwide.
Mr. Linde declined to comment on the decision to close the Participant.
Mr. Skoll’s involvement with Participant has waned in recent years. He said in a note to Participant employees that he wanted to focus more on his philanthropic foundation, which won social entrepreneurship. In 2021, citing smoke from wildfires, he moved to Florida from California.
“I did the best I could with my time there and I’m grateful,” he wrote to X when he left the state. “On to a new chapter.”
