Career
Campea started his career for Beagle Productions and later as client services director for Satellite Studios, a visual effects and 3D animation studio whose work appeared in a number of films, including Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams , The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen , The One , and Frank Miller's Sin City. [1] Then after his time working as visual effects artist, he began to work at a law firm for three years.
In 2003, he founded The Movie Blog, a film website offering daily editorials and commentary on current movies, movie news, and the film industry. The Movie Blog eventually became a full-time occupation for Campea. [2] In 2006, Campea and then-co-host Doug Nagy won a Bloggie for "Podcast of the Year" for The Movie Blog's podcast show Uncut. [3]
He quit The Movie Blog in late 2009 [4] to focus on developing the news site for AMC called AMC Movie News, [5] but returned for a short time in 2012.
Filmmaking
In 2008, Campea released his first documentary film, Prince of Peace: God of War, that examined the stark contrasts between the pro-war and pro-pacifism movements within the Christian church. [6] [7] It played at several film festivals [7] [8] in North America and received favorable reviews. [9] [10] He completed filming his first feature film, The Anniversary, in 2009. [11] Campea now runs his own production company, Carson Drive Media (named after his childhood street in Hamilton, Ontario), and released his second documentary in November 2020, titled Movie Trailers: A Love Story.
Comic-Con Masters of the Web
In 2011, Campea took over the annual "Masters of the Web" panel at San Diego Comic-Con. The panel serves as a discussion on the film industry and the world of film blogging and journalism online. Each year Campea hosts the panel with major online film personalities. The panel has also had several special celebrity guests over the years including Stan Lee, Edgar Wright, Karl Urban, Roberto Orci and others.
AMC Movie News
Campea was Editor-in-Chief of AMC Movie News and the creator and host of such shows as AMC Movie Talk, AMC Jedi Council (an all Star Wars talk show), AMC Mail Bag, AMC Versus, AMC Coming Soon and AMC Spoilers. Their main show, AMC Movie Talk, won the 2014 International Academy of Web Television (IAWTV) award for "Best News Series". The AMC Movie News YouTube channel has its videos viewed over 5 million times per month and continues to grow. Campea announced his resignation as editor-in-chief of AMC Movie News in May 2015, but continued to appear on the show through the subsequent few weeks of June 2015.
Collider
In July 2015, Campea announced that he had joined Collider, and that most of the previous web shows that aired on AMC's YouTube channel, would end their association with AMC and transition to Collider's channel, with AMC Theatres remaining as a sponsor. [12] On February 17, 2016, Campea had announced on that day's episode of Collider Movie Talk that he had resigned from Collider, and explained his future plans in the industry. [13] Campea continued to be a guest on both Collider Jedi Council and Collider Heroes, returning as host and showrunner of Collider Movie Talk in September 2016. However, Campea left Collider once again in June 2017, citing creative differences in the direction of the channel, to work on other projects, including his personal YouTube channel.
Author
On September 4, 2015, Campea launched a Kickstarter campaign to publish a book he wrote called The Pride. [14] The campaign met its goal several days later. On February 13, 2016, Campea announced through the book's Kickstarter page that the novel was finished. [15] The Kindle edition of The Pride was released on February 29, 2016, with a physical copy going on sale at a later date. [16]
The John Campea Show and Mailbag
After leaving Collider, Campea started his own independent film talk and news show, similar to Movie Talk on Collider, on his own personal YouTube channel that airs weekdays, as well as companion videos answering missed fan questions and live streams. Until November 2021, Robert Meyer Burnett and Erin Cummings appeared as co-hosts on the show on most weekdays and Thursdays, respectively. [17] As of September 2022 he is joined weekdays by Burnett (most weekdays), Cummings (on some Wednesdays), voice actress Kris Carr (on Wednesdays and Fridays), actress Amy Newman (on Thursdays and Fridays) and Ray Ora who is his brother-in-law and a graphic designer. Jonathan Voytko rejoined the show in May 2022 as a producer, having previously worked as an editor/technical director on AMC Movie Talk and Collider projects; in his time with Campea, he earned the nickname "Fact Checker Jonathan". By July 2022, his own channel has amassed over 296,000 subscribers. [18] In November 2021, Campea received criticism after accidentally leaking alleged photos from Spider-Man: No Way Home . The film's release has since confirmed the validity of the images. [19]
In February 2022, Campea revived the Mailbag feature, effectively replacing the previous TJCS companion videos. The format is similar to the companion videos, however, the show takes questions submitted 24/7 from fans tipped via Streamlabs, as opposed to the main show’s questions being taken exclusively from YouTube’s Super Chat function. As of March 2022, the show is hosted by Campea or Burnett 2–3 times a week, with the first edition of Mailbag airing on February 1, 2022 and ended in August 2022. [20] Campea also co-hosts a weekly show with Burnett and competitive swimmer Cody Miller titled Best Movie Worst Movie, focusing on a different topic each week.
Campea has been embroiled in a series of controversies amongst the online community for a variety of reasons.
Throughout the years Campea's hiring and firing practices have been brought into question. Fans of his various YouTube shows would often point out that he would always hire incredibly attractive women with large breasts as "hosts" of his show. Despite their title of host they would contribute very little to the overall show, sometimes barely even getting a chance to speak and would rarely stay employed for more than a month or two in the role before being let go. When consistently asked by live chats why this was the case, Campea refused to acknowledge it, often falsely claiming he had already addressed the situation in detail.
He was very openly criticized by his former employees and fans online for his treatment and handling of the firing of his long-time co-panelist and friend Robert Meyer Burnett in March 2023 as well as his personal assistant Taylor Gonzales in April, leading his subscriber and YouTube views to significantly drop. The controversy attracted more attention when Campea had openly said numerous times in the months prior that Gonzales would accompany him to that year's CinemaCon. However, following his dismissal a mere week before the event, Gonzales started a GoFundMe pleading with fans to help pay for him to go.
Campea has also been criticized of his covering of the Depp v. Heard trial continuously mocking the serious nature of domestic violence against men and Johnny Depp in general as well as publicly defending Amber Heard. He even went so far as to post numerous solo videos explaining in depth and referencing his past in law about how Depp would lose and shouldn't be allowed to continue to work in Hollywood. Fans and critics said he should have taken a more unbiased approach when covering the story and he came across as tasteless and often at times clueless with his comments about the trial. Many people noted that his co-panelists were visibly disgusted by his comments on his show.
His views as an extreme Liberal has often been a source of controversy on his shows, frequently wearing LGBTQ clothing, refusing to answer questions that conflict with his political views and consistently making disparaging remarks to online viewers who identify as straight white males accusing them of homophobia and sexism purely if they disagree with certain aspects of movies and television shows.
In May 2023, Campea decided to end the live-streamed aspect of TJCS (except for channel members) and turn the podcast into an audio-only podcast, drawing criticism from other critics, fans, and viewers. Campea later reversed this decision, making the show initially available to non-members with a delay from June 2023 and live again from October 2023. [21] [22]
Open Mic
As of 2018, in addition to The John Campea Show, Open Mic was also included as a daily, live, viewer submitted question forum. Described by Campea as a "virtual watercooler", it focuses on wide-ranging live chat discussion. On the October 29, 2020 episode of The John Campea Show, Campea announced that Open Mic was moved to a podcast exclusive, available with the flagship program on any podcasting network. In August 2022, it was announced that Open Mic would be returning to the John Campea YouTube channel.
Controversies
Campea has been embroiled in a series of controversies amongst the online community for a variety of reasons.
Throughout the years Campea's hiring and firing practices have been brought into question. Fans of his various YouTube shows would often point out that he would always hire incredibly attractive women with large breasts as "hosts" of his show. Despite their title of host they would contribute very little to the overall show, sometimes barely even getting a chance to speak and would rarely stay employed for more than a month or two in the role before being let go. When consistently asked by live chats why this was the case, Campea refused to acknowledge it, often falsely claiming he had already addressed the situation in detail.
He was very openly criticized by his former employees and fans online for his treatment and handling of the firing of his long-time co-panelist and friend Robert Meyer Burnett in March 2023 as well as his personal assistant Taylor Gonzales in April, leading his subscriber and YouTube views to significantly drop. The controversy attracted more attention when Campea had openly said numerous times in the months prior that Gonzales would accompany him to that year's CinemaCon. However, following his dismissal a mere week before the event, Gonzales started a GoFundMe pleading with fans to help pay for him to go.
Campea has also been criticized of his covering of the Depp v. Heard trial continuously mocking the serious nature of domestic violence against men and Johnny Depp in general as well as publicly defending Amber Heard. He even went so far as to post numerous solo videos explaining in depth and referencing his past in law about how Depp would lose and shouldn't be allowed to continue to work in Hollywood. Fans and critics said he should have taken a more unbiased approach when covering the story and he came across as tasteless and often at times clueless with his comments about the trial. Many people noted that his co-panelists were visibly disgusted by his comments on his show.
