Michael Cieply: Participant Sank When Everyone Jumped In
23.04.2024 - 07:54
/ deadline.com
At first, I was shocked by the news that Participant Media was dying. Such an appealing company. Smart. Mindful. Vibrant. Forward-thinking. The producer of intelligent films like Spotlight and Green Book, with a distinctly progressive message.
How could this be?
Then it finally hit me. Whatever else may have happened—announcing the shutdown, proprietor Jeff Skoll cited “revolutionary” changes in the entertainment business—Participant went under, I believe, because most of high-end Hollywood jumped into the company’s basically sound but modestly sized boat. The purpose-film niche was swamped.
It’s almost hard to remember that 20 years ago, when Participant was founded, the notion of a self-consciously message-oriented, activist film company was actually novel.
But, cinematically speaking, it was a much different world in 2004. The top movie that year was Shrek 2—not much message there. Culturally, the big story was a religious film, The Passion of the Christ. That hasn’t happened since. Most of the year’s popcorn pictures—The Notebook, Kill Bill: Vol. 2, Ladder 49, Cheaper by the Dozen, Ray—were looking more for ticket sales than social change.
Somewhat incredibly, Disney and Pixar were suspected back then of mildly subversive conservative messaging in The Incredibles. (The story “is likely to resonate more in conservative-leaning ‘red’ states than in liberal-leaning ‘blue’ ones,” opined The New York Times.) Best Picture winner at the Oscars that year was The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Fantasy ruled.
Against that backdrop, the Participant experiment seemed daring, but not foolhardy. Skoll and company had comfortable shelf space for films like Murderball, Good Night, and Good Luck, Syriana or An