Vice Media Unveils New Creative Structure For Global Production Biz; Elevates Jamie Hall & Danny Gabai To Co-Presidents Of Newly-Formed Vice Studios Group

EXCLUSIVE: Vice Media Group has announced a new creative structure for its global production business now dubbed Vice Studios Group, which will oversee five premium production entities: Pulse Films, UnTypical, Vice Studios LatAm, Vice Studios Canada and a news documentary unit. Vice Studios Group will be led by the newly elevated Jamie Hall in London and Danny Gabai in Los Angeles as Co-Presidents.

The new content-studio, which has a distribution catalogue of more than 1,000 hours, will work with global streamers, linear broadcasters and brands around the world to develop, finance and produce multi-genre, cutting edge content. It currently has more than 20 productions filming or in edit across the group, including scripted, non-fiction, news and music documentaries. Additionally, Gabai said that the group has “started production on a comedic but character-driven documentary about the 1994 World Cup with Jamie Crawford (Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99) attached to direct – one of the multiple projects we’re doing with Jamie.”

Speaking to Deadline about the new structure, Hall said: “It feels like we are now at a point where we’re in a much simpler, streamlined structure and that has given us the opportunity across the studio to get some real clarity as to what we are in the market. What Danny and I have been working on is creating a structure that really exemplifies what we are about. By having Vice Studios Group as our top company and then the individual brands underneath, I think that gives a real clarity to the market as to what each different label does.”

Gabai added: “What we really realized as we started to delve into the different groups that had formed within our larger studios organization of the last 12 years was that it was really five companies with one brand – and that was a very key thing for us. There were different groups that had come together either through acquisitions or partnerships or through growing somewhat similar spiritually but different business-wise, and what we realized was that instead of trying to pack them all into just a single production group, it actually made sense to let each of them flourish in terms of who they are and what they do so they can really own that. With this model, each one of the companies can develop, finance, produce and make things that they do best.”

Pulse Films will continue its legacy in producing filmmaker and talent-focused long and short form content across commercials, music videos, scripted film and TV series and music docs. Recent credits include Gangs of Londoncurrently in its third season for Sky and AMC+, Saorise Ronan feature film Gangs of London; Netflix doc Lewis Capaldi: How I’m Feeling Now and Victoria’s Secret: The Tour 23 for Amazon.

UnTypical is the new name for the production company formerly known as Vice Studios. It will focus on global docs and formats, working with auteurs securing unique access to offer viewers a new point of view. Previous work includes MAX hit Bama Rush, ESPN 30 for 30, The American Gladiator DocumentaryNetflix series Encounters and Sean Penn doc Superpower. The outfit is coming off the back of two premieres at Sundance with The Gospel According to Tammy Faye and DEVO.

Meanwhile, Vice Studios Canada, the company behind franchise Dark Side and doc Qanon: The Search for Qwill focus on factual format series servicing broadcasters such as Vice TV and Bell Media’s Crave, while Vice Studios LatAm, the studio behind Netflix hits 1994 and The Divine Gluttonywill focus Latin American and LatinX stories in the doc and non-scripted space. The latter will see original format series Fight Cravings (Street Chefs) air on ViX later this year.

The group also includes a long-form news doc team (yet to be named), which will produce premium, current affairs documentaries and non-fiction series with a contemporary lens. Earlier this year, the team won an RTS Award for On-Demand Journalism Stealing Ukraine’s Children

“Leveraging the strengths across our production companies under the Vice brand creates a powerful offering for producers and talent who create content that pushes the boundaries of traditional film and television,” said Bruce Dixon, Vice Media Group CEO. “Jamie and Danny are the right leaders to drive the Studios’ business forward and lead our incredibly talented teams.”

Hall, who has been with Pulse Films since 2018, was most recently Chief Operating Officer of Scripted Content at the company and integral to bringing series such as Gangs of London to life, while Gabai, previously Chief Content Officer at Vice Studios, played an instrumental part of building the production company from the ground up and has produced projects such as animated doc Flee and Netflix docs Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond and Adam Driver starrer The Report.

Vice Media has gone through rounds of layoffs recently, with Dixon saying in February that the company was going through “fundamental changes to our strategic vision.” The company was sold out of bankruptcy last year to hedge fund and former investor Fortress for $350M. It has now moved out of the online news game and is focusing on: Vice Studios; Vice TV, a joint venture with A&E; the Virtue ad agency; and Vice Digital, a culture hub publishing content on and around Vice’s platforms.