Jeff Skoll Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Charles Yu’s “Interior Chinatown” is headed to the small screen as a 10-part series with the author acting as showrunner and executive producer alongside Taika Waititi, who will direct the pilot episode for Hulu.“Silicon Valley” and “Crazy Rich Asians” actor Jimmy O. Yang is set to star.

Editors note: Filmmaker and producer Davis Guggenheim directed 2006’s An Inconvenient Truth featuring Al Gore. The film won the Oscar and helped put Jeff Skoll‘s social-impact-driven production company then known as Participant Media on the map, and also sounded an alarm about climate change that has become more pronounced since the film was released. In addition to documentaries, Participant was also responsible for Oscar Best Picture winners Spotlight and Green Book, and Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion, another timely topic. Guggenheim is a co-founder of Concordia Studio and most recently directed and produced Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, which  won four Emmys including for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special.  He is the only person to direct and produce three distinct films ranking in the top 100 highest-grossing documentaries of all time (An Inconvenient Truth, It Might Get Loud, and Waiting for Superman). Here he penned a guest column for Deadline after learning Participant was shuttering. 

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.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer End of an era, end of a business model, end of a gravy train, end of the world. There were plenty of mixed emotions this week in response to the closure of Oscar-winning production company Participant, and at the very least the industry has agreed something has come to an end.

UPDATED with more details: Financier and producer Participant is shuttering after 20 years. Founder Jeff Skoll alerted staff at 10:30 a.m. PT on Tuesday, Deadline has confirmed.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer Participant, the 20-year-old film and television production company whose mission was to inspire social justice and humanitarian action, is shutting down. Founder Jeff Skoll broke the news to a staff of roughly 100 on Tuesday.

Caroline Brew editor “Do I look like every other politician?” Regina King‘s Shirley Chisholm says in response to being told she sounds like every other politician in the trailer for “Shirley.” Out March 22, the Netflix film tells the story of Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress, and chronicles her trailblazing 1972 presidential campaign. The movie is written and directed by John Ridley, who won an Oscar for penning “12 Years a Slave.” King leads the cast, which is rounded out by Lance Reddick, Lucas Hedges, Terrence Howard, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Christina Jackson, Michael Cherrie, Dorian Crossmond Missick, Amirah Vann, W.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent In one of the biggest co-production deals unveiled at Content London, Mediawan‘s label Atlantique Productions has joined forces with Participant to make an ambitious limited espionage thriller series based on the Pegasus spyware scandal. Amit Cohen (“False Flag,” “Bad Boy”) and Ron Leshem (“Euphoria,” “No Man’s Land”) are on board as creators and showrunners for the mini-series which will adapted from the bestseller “Pegasus: How a Spy in Our Pocket Threatens the End of Privacy, Dignity, and Democracy.” The book charts the sprawling international investigation conducted in 2020 and 2021 which revealed how governments used Pegasus spyware technology to spy on politicians, activists and business executives.

Carole Horst Minhal Baig’s “We Grown Now,” which bowed Sept. 8 at TIFF, follows Malik (Blake Cameron James) and Eric (Gian Knight Ramirez), two 12-year-old boys living in Chicago’s Cabrini Green housing project. It’s 1992 and the boys have loving homes overzealous and racist police, crime and an unthinkable tragedy burst through their childhood bubble.

Addie Morfoot Contributor Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia is the latest high-net-worth individual to get involved in the documentary business. As a producer on Waad Al-Kateab’s “We Dare to Dream,” about the refugee Olympic team at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Gebbia not only helped fund the project, he also played an active role in the film’s pre-production, production, and edit. “We Dare to Dream” is Al-Kateab’s second feature docu. In her first film, “For Sama,” which was nominated for an Academy Award, the Syrian director used her camera to capture her daily life during the siege of Aleppo.Gebbia produced “We Dare to Dream” alongside Violet Films’ Joanna Natasegara (“Virunga”) and Abigail Anketell-Jones (“The Edge of Democracy”) and XTR’s Bryn Mooser and Kathryn Everett. Angelina Jolie recently signed on as an executive producer on the project. Gebbia joins fellow philanthropists Laurene Powell Jobs (Concordia Studio), Jeff Skoll (Participant Media) and Jim Swartz (Impact Partners) in the docu investment business.

Tony Award-winning actress Cynthia Erivo will topline a film adaptation of the hit play “Prima Facie,” which she will also executive produce.Participant and Bunya Productions are producing the film, in association with Erivo’s Edith’s Daughter. The film will be directed by BAFTA Award-winning filmmaker Susanna White.

NEON has acquired the North American rights to Academy Award-nominated and BAFTA-winning director, Raoul Peck’s (I Am Not Your Negro) documentary Orwell, the definitive feature-length documentary on visionary author George Orwell, with the exclusive cooperation of the Orwell Estate.

EXCLUSIVE: Abramorama and Giant Pictures have acquired North American rights to Nuclear Now, the latest documentary from 3x Academy Award winner Oliver Stone, which premiered (as Nuclear) at last year’s Venice Film Festival.  

EXCLUSIVE: Lauren Tom (The Joy Luck Club) has joined the cast of Hulu’s Interior Chinatown from 20th Television and creator/executive producer Charles Yu, who wrote the 2020 bestseller of the same name.

EXCLUSIVE: Diamond-certified singer-songwriter Camila Cabello has found her next major acting gig on the heels of Prime Video’s Cinderella. The Cuban-born artist has closed a deal to join Jay Will, Mary J. Blige and Chiwetel Ejiofor in Rob Peace — the drama that Ejiofor is directing from his own script, as his sophomore feature effort.

Magnolia Pictures has acquired North American rights from Participant to “A Compassionate Spy,” the new documentary from Steve James (“Hoop Dreams,” “Life Itself”). The film, which world premiered at the Venice Film Festival ahead of its North American launch at Telluride, is a real-life spy story about Manhattan Project physicist Ted Hall, who provided nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union, told through the perspective of his wife Joan, who protected his secret for decades. Magnolia will release the film in theaters later this year. “A Compassionate Spy” is presented by Participant and is a Mitten Media and Kartemquin Films production produced by Mark Mitten p.g.a., Dave Lindorff, and Steve James. Executive producers are Jeff Skoll, Diane Weyermann, Tim Horsburgh and Gordon Quinn.

EXCLUSIVE: 2x Academy Award nominee Mary J. Blige (Mudbound) is set to star alongside Tulsa King‘s Jay Will in the upcoming drama Rob Peace. Through her banner Blue Butterfly, she’ll also exec produce the pic, written and directed by Chiwetel Ejiofor, which is now in production.

EXCLUSIVE: Diana Lin and Archie Kao have been cast in series regular roles on Interior Chinatown, a new series in the works for Hulu from 20th Television and creator/executive producer Charles Yu, who wrote the 2020 bestseller of the same name.

EXCLUSIVE: Participant has announced that it is producing Food, Inc. 2 — a sequel to its Academy Award-nominated documentary Food, Inc., to be released later this year.

BreAnna Bell Hulu has placed a 10-episode order for “Interior Chinatown,” a drama based on the award-winning book of the same name created by Charles Yu. Variety first reported the series was in development in Oct. 2020. Jimmy O. Yang will star in the series as Willis Wu, described as “a background character stuck doing work in a police procedural called ‘Black & White’ who has no idea of his leading man status. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web in Chinatown, revealing certain family secrets and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.” Yang’s previous credits include “Love Hard,” “Crazy Rich Asians,” “Silicon Valley,” the latter of which he appeared in throughout its six-season run at HBO.

Neon snapped up theatrical rights on Aug. 18 prior to the documentary’s world premiere at Venice Film Festival.

EXCLUSIVE: Participant’s Chloé Zhao-exec produced limited scripted series about Vincent Chin had found its writers and director.

Manori Ravindran International Editor Utopia has acquired Participant Media’s feature documentary “Unseen Skies,” which the U.S. distributor will release on Sept. 13. Directed by award-winning filmmaker Yaara Bou Melhem, “Unseen Skies” explores the evolution of state and corporate surveillance. The film follows American artist and geographer Trevor Paglen as he launches an artwork called “Orbital Reflector” into space, visible with the naked eye from Earth, to highlight the global impact of technology in the modern world. Having achieved international notoriety for his conceptual art, which fuses photography and large-scale multidisciplinary events, Paglen’s work reveals the largely unseen power structures of technology and surveillance that shape, impact and increasingly define the framework of our lives.

Participant Media CEO David Linde has said he is “energized” by the number of production and distribution companies who are now committed to social change.

EXCLUSIVE: Peacock has acquired the civil rights documentary Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power ahead of its world premiere next week at the Tribeca Festival. A streaming release date will be announced soon for the pic, which is presented by Participant, a Multitude Films production, in association with The Atlantic and will bow on the streamer as a Peacock Original.

Angelique Jackson Participant, Zodiac Pictures and Tyler Perry’s Peachtree & Vine Productions have teamed up to produce “Frank & Louis,” starring Laurence Fishburne and Clifton Collins Jr.Directed by Petra Volpe, the film follows a man serving a life sentence who takes an in-prison job caring for aging and infirm prisoners suffering from memory loss diseases. As the project’s official logline explains, “What starts as a self-serving mission for parole turns into a deep emotional and transformative relationship, offering a glimmer of redemption in an otherwise unforgiving place.”Participant, whose company mission is dedicated to entertainment that stands at the intersection of art and activism, is producing the film with Zodiac Pictures’ Reto Schaerli and Lukas Hobi, and Perry and Tim Palen of Peachtree & Vine Productions.

“To work with Laurence Fishburne and Clifton Collins, Jr. on this intimate and emotional story is an absolute dream come true,” said Volpe in a statement.

Sharon M. Draper’s best-seller “Out of My Mind” is being adapted into a TV movie, Ayo Davis, president of Disney Branded Television, announced on Wednesday. Big Beach, Participant, EveryWhere Studios LLC and Disney Branded Television are behind the adaptation for the Disney+ streaming service.After a worldwide search, newcomer Phoebe-Rae Taylor has been cast as the lead in the film, which is being directed by Amber Sealey (“No Man of God”). Taylor will star as 12-year-old Melody Brooks, a girl with cerebral palsy, who has a quick wit and a sharp mind, but who is not given the same academic opportunities as her classmates due to her being non-verbal and using a wheelchair.“There’s a sense of exhilaration here as we embark with this very well-regarded creative team in adapting Sharon Draper’s candid, beautiful and powerful book that tells a universally relatable story about both following your dreams and having an impact in this world,” Davis said in a statement.

Disney+ will adapt Sharon M. Draper’s Out of My Mind from page to screen as an upcoming movie. The project comes from Big Beach, Participant, EveryWhere Studios LLC and Disney Branded Television. Amber Sealey (No Man of God) will direct from an adapted screenplay written by Daniel Siepleman (Humanitas Prize winner for On the Basis of Sex).