Reese Witherspoon is partnering with a joint venture, between The Chernin Group and AT&T Inc. called Otter Media. They are forming a new multimedia company, called ‘Hello Sunshine’, which focuses on sharing stories about women. Witherspoon’s role in the partnership will be her production company, called Pacific Standard. The company has produced films titled, “Gone Girl” and “Wild”. They also have an upcoming series for HBO, titled “Big Little Lies”. Being a subsidiary of the Hello Sunshine Company, Pacific Standard will continue to produce films and TV shows, while also focusing on short produced digital content designed for social media.
In 2014, Media Executive Peter Chernin partnered with AT&T and formed Otter Media to capitalize on the popular streaming video industry. More than $500 million was invested to finance and/or launch new companies in the industry. This new venture will give AT&T the opportunity to get a share of a marketplace that is limited on content designed for women and by women. According to USC-Annenberg, only 28.7% of the speaking roles for films were female characters, and only 15% of the directors in the industry were women.
In 2012, Witherspoon partnered with producer Bruna Papandrea to launch Pacific Standard. Their goal was to have more women on both sides of the camera. Recently, Papandrea left Pacific Standard and started a new venture. The portfolio of Otter Media includes, social marketing agency McBeard, digital studio Gunpowder & Sky, and Fullscreen Media, the owner of Rooster Teeth digital studio. Some of Otter Media’s other investments include gaming space, which has a VRV and Crunchyroll video service, and Japanese anime. In the beginning of 2016, Otter Media acquired Barstool Sports, a sports media company.
Next year, AT&T plans to close on a deal to purchase Time Warner Inc. It was announced last week that Time Warner’s studio, Warner Bros. made a deal to purchase a competitor of Fullscreen, Machinima.