Movies with a Message

By Melba Newsome/ Los Angeles

By the time Jeff Skoll, CEO of the newly formed film company Participant Productions, got the script for Good Night, and Good Luck--about the showdown between heralded 1950s news anchor Edward R. Murrow and infamous communist witch hunter Joseph McCarthy--it had been turned down by every studio in Hollywood. "Once I started to learn about McCarthyism and about what Murrow did, the story struck me as very relevant to what's going on today with this Administration and things like the Patriot Act," says Canadian-born Skoll. Nonetheless, Skoll also passed on making the script, which George Clooney had originally cowritten as a four-part television show. But when Skoll spent time with Clooney in Dubai during the filming of Syriana, the two talked for hours about history. Clooney explained his vision for the film, frame by frame, and Skoll was sold. He believed the film would meld with Participant's grandiose mission: to change the world.

Skoll isn't just any filmmaker. He's a cofounder of eBay, who retired at 35 with a reported $2 billion in his pocket. Like most other entrepreneurs who have made their first billion before 35, the boyish-looking Skoll is an intensely driven man. Exhausted employees say he is rarely out of touch and never without his Sidekick, Treo and cell phone. These days Skoll's primary objective is not to make money but rather to spend what he has pursuing such lofty ideals as government accountability and social and economic justice.

Skoll is no novice to philanthropy or quixotic causes. As eBay's first president, he created the eBay Foundation with a donation of 107,250 shares of pre-ipo stock to fund community organizations and provide grants to a variety of non-profit groups. His $600 million Skoll Foundation awards up to 18 grants each year, ranging from $500,000 to $1 million, to midlevel social entrepreneurs. But when Skoll opened Participant Productions in January 2004 and announced his intention to cure what ails the world through film, even his greatest admirers predicted the billionaire would soon be downsizing to a mere millionaire. In Hollywood there generally isn't much money to be made in doing good. Skoll was undeterred. "I believe that people are basically good and want to do good things, and this was a way to help them do that," he says. "Traditionally, people come to Hollywood for financial reasons, or they think it's glamorous. I'm doing this because I believe that movies and documentaries can be a wonderful pathway to change the world."

Skoll, who sees Participant as a way to straddle the line between business and philanthropy, is encouraged by the track record of other movies with a message that have achieved commercial success, such as Schindler's List, Gandhi and Hotel Rwanda. Persuading big- name stars like Frances McDormand and Charlize Theron to work on feel-good projects for a fledgling studio was a hurdle at first. "In the early days, we spent a lot of time trying to find people who were interested in what we were doing," he says. "Now we are inundated with people coming to us--actors, writers, directors--with great, entertaining projects. I've found that everybody has a project or issue that is special to them."

Although Skoll has the final say on which movies get the green light, he has assembled a team of veteran Hollywood executives who share his vision to oversee the day-to-day operation of Participant's documentary and narrative-feature divisions. "I was definitely inspired by his passion and belief that this could be successful," says Participant president Ricky Strauss. "The idea of working on movies that mattered, with social relevance, was exciting and intoxicating."

Good Night, and Good Luck, North Country and Syriana came out of Participant's partnership with Warner Bros. Entertainment (a division of Time Warner, which owns TIME). "I know these movies carry more risk than something like Dukes of Hazzard, but they are movies with a purpose," says Warner Bros. president and coo Alan Horn. Although Horn is also actively involved in myriad political and social causes, he was able to partner with Skoll because of the entrepreneur's willingness to put up half the money and assume half the risk, which made the partnership more appealing.

So far it's unclear whether the risks are paying off--at least financially. The black-and-white quasi-biopic Good Night, and Good Luck cost a modest $7 million and has earned $18 million at the box office to date. But North Country, the story of a single mother whose barbaric treatment in a Minnesota mine leads to the first sexual-harassment class action in the country, has been a commercial disappointment, so far recouping just half its $35 million budget.

Skoll has much bigger ambitions than making money, though. He hopes inspired viewers will take steps to bring about change. With each movie release, the company's partner website, Participate. net, provides viewers with a way to get involved. Working in partnership with the a.c.l.u., Channel One, pbs, Salon.com and Satellite Radio, the "Report It Now" campaign (a takeoff on Murrow's 1950s cbs News program See It Now) asks viewers to report important stories ignored or overlooked by the media. The larger purpose, according to the website, is to "compel the media to get back to reporting in the public interest." For North Country, Participant joined forces with the Family Violence Prevention Fund, the Feminist Majority Foundation and now to launch "Stand Up," an action campaign that asks viewers to lobby Congress to renew the Violence Against Women Act and that challenges them to implement and support other antiharassment practices at home, at school and in the workplace.

Skoll's bet on movies with a message may pay off yet. Syriana, Participant's venture with Clooney, and its third and most ambitious movie to date, opened nationwide in late November and has received favorable reviews and plenty of buzz. Based on the book See No Evil by former cia operative Robert Baer, the film looks at the danger of U.S. reliance on Middle Eastern oil. The film may earn back its investment. But Skoll cares even more about its spurring a serious discussion on alternative energy. In partnership with the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club and Terra Pass, Skoll asks viewers to lobby Congress for more investments in renewable energy and presents ways to reduce oil dependence. With three movies under his belt--and a box-office hit or two--Skoll may now persuade even the most profit-hungry investors to join his crusade to change the world.