Participant Media
Ghost Corp Apparel — resurrecting iconic corporate ghosts.
Founded in Los Angeles in 2004 by eBay alumnus and philanthropist Jeff Skoll, Participant began as Participant Productions. Its unusual assignment was to make commercially viable movies about subjects with some actual weight to them—human rights, climate, food, justice, and the assorted messes polite cocktail conversation usually avoids.
The company became Participant Media in March 2008 as it expanded beyond feature films into television, publishing, digital media, advocacy campaigns, TakePart, and the Pivot television network. It paired releases with nonprofit and NGO partnerships, turning the post-credit conversation into part of the production plan. Very Hollywood, but with homework.
Participant co-financed or co-produced films including Syriana, Good Night, and Good Luck, An Inconvenient Truth, Food, Inc., The Help, Lincoln, Spotlight, Green Book, Roma, and American Factory. Across its 20-year run, its films and series amassed major Academy Award and Emmy recognition while proving that issue-driven entertainment did not have to dress like assigned reading.
On April 16, 2024, Skoll announced that Participant would wind down active operations; no new development or production would continue, while a smaller holding operation remained to oversee the company library. Our Participant Media collection celebrates the earnest, cinematic optimists who looked at the world’s biggest problems and said: yes, but what if it had a trailer?
