Good Fear, the content and management company founded by former Benderspink co-founder Chris Bender, is shutting down its management division, three insiders told TheWrap.
The news comes on the heels of Good Fear co-founder Jake Weiner leaving the company earlier last month to launch Harvest Hill Entertainment, ending a 25-year partnership with Bender.
On Thursday, Good Fear co-founder and lit manager Scott Stoops made a lateral move over to Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment after more than a decade at Good Fear. Stoops had been with Good Fear since its inception in 2016.
A spokesperson for the company denied the management division has been shut down: “Good Fear continues its day-to-day business with our primary focus on our production slate and the managers who continue to work with their clients every day.”
But a top manager told TheWrap, “They’re just trying to give people enough time to land.”
The management space has been hit hard by contraction over the last few years, with less production bringing smaller commissions. Earlier this week, WME laid off 30 staffers.
Bender has spent almost 30 years in the management business, 18 at Benderpsink where he produced mid-budget comedy titles like “The Hangover” trilogy, “We’re the Millers” and hits like “A History of Violence” “The Ring” and “The Butterfly Effect” with former partner and co-founder, the late JC Spink, who died at the age of 45 back in 2017.
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The pair graduated from Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Penn., and were assistants at management-production company Zide-Perry Productions before striking out on their own in 1998, working out of a house they shared in West Hollywood. Within its first year, Benderspink sold more than 20 screenplays and helped set up “American Pie,” which grossed $235 million worldwide. It then signed a first-look production deal with New Line Cinema.
After dissolving Benderpsink, Bender launched Good Fear Film + Management in 2016.
“This has been an incredible journey with Chris and more recently, our other partner Scott Stoops. We built a company that sought out and embraced new voices and helped launch their careers,” Weiner said in a statement when he left the company. “Most importantly, over the past two and a half decades, Chris Bender and I have been there for each other through all of the ups and downs of life. And while I’m headed down a different path, we have plenty we’ll be working on together.”
Weiner’s client list includes Allison Schroeder (“Hidden Figures,” “Minecraft”), New York Times bestselling novelist Jennifer Weiner (“The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits”), Paul Haapaniemi (“Netflix’s Ransom Canyon”), filmmakers David Robert Mitchell (“It Follows”) and Julian Higgins (“God’s Country”); documentary filmmaker Clay Tweel (“Gleason”) and writers/podcast creators Jake Emanuel and Willie Block (“The Reunion”).
Stoops’ client list includes director Kirill Sokolov, who directed New Line’s “They Will Kill You,” which just premiered at SXSW and opens in theaters on March 27. Stoops and Harvest Hill’s Weiner will share Sokolov as a client.
Stoops’ other clients include filmmaker Santiago Menghini (“The Revenge of La Llorona”), Matthew Scot Kane (“Hysteria!”), Aisha Porter-Christie (“Gen V,” “Daredevil”), Rayna McClendon (“Fourth Wing,” “Tomb Raider”), Megan McDonnell (“The Marvels,” “Dark Matter”), Katie Crabb (“Sick,” “Waterfront”), Wyatt Cain (“Poker Face”), Stephen Herman (“They’re Still Here”), Ben Mekler & Chris Amick (“Ticket to Ride”), Michael Voyer (“The Broodmare,” “We’re So Happy You Found Us”), and Josh Giuliano (“River”).