Paul Corvino sits down with Glenn Gainor, CEO of Hollywood Ventures Group. Spanning his leadership at Amazon Original Movies (Prime Movies), the launch of Hollywood Ventures Group , and his advisory work with Producers Without Borders, Glenn's career exemplifies innovation, collaboration, and a global vision for storytelling.
Bio:
Glenn Gainor, a distinguished leader and innovator with thirty years of experience in the entertainment industry, has made it his life’s work to empower storytelling around the world. He has held key production roles as the Head of Physical Production at Amazon MGM and Sony Screen Gems, a Sony Pictures Company and is a tenured member of the entertainment community. Additionally, Gainor co-created an innovation studio for Sony and is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He is an honoree at the 2025 Xposure Photography & Film Festival held in Sharjah, UAE, and a recipient of the Social Impact Producer of the Year award presented at the 2024 Venice Film Festival.
Since November 2020, as Head of Physical Production for Amazon Original Movies at Amazon MGM, he has overseen productions like the Eddie Murphy comedy Candy Cane Lane, the Dwayne Johnson Christmas tent pole Red One, the award-winning Aaron Sorkin film Being the Ricardos, and the George Clooney-directed The Tender Bar. He also advises Amazon Studios’ Innovation Lab on industry priorities, including practicing future foresight.
Before joining Amazon Studios, Gainor was Head of Physical Production for Screen Gems, a label under the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group umbrella, for 14 years and has been a catalyst to several #1 movies such as The Perfect Guy, No Good Deed, Think Like a Man, Friends with Benefits, and Obsessed. Since joining Screen Gems in 2007, Gainor oversaw the label’s physical production and served as an executive producer and unit production manager on films such as 2015’s The Wedding Ringer, which held as America’s number one comedy for three weeks.
A cornerstone in Gainor’s innovative approach to film production lies in the intersection of technology, sustainability and filmmaking. His passion led to Sony asking Gainor to head Sony Innovation Studios, a state-of-the-art facility housed in a sound stage on the Sony Pictures Studios lot. Innovation Studios was designed to bring advanced technologies like volumetric capture and customizable set scanning to filmmakers and series producers. The company offers creatives the ability to scan film sets and then reuse them as digital assets in future productions. This has allowed Gainor to harness relationships with Sony’s Computer Science Laboratory, Sony Interactive Entertainment, PlayStation and other forward-thinking divisions. This kind of thinking helped give rise to volume wall photography that we see around the world today. One of the accomplishments of Sony Innovation Studios was the capture of Mission Control, the main headquarters set used in MIB International. The capture enabled the company to film a series of commercials using the point cloud virtual set. This inspired The Advanced Imaging Society (AIS) to give the studio a Lumiere Award for “best use of a virtual set.” Gainor also was invited to accept The Sir Charles Wheatstone Award on behalf of Sony Corporation from the AIS. This award is given to an organization or individual who has made vital contributions to cutting-edge use of technology. Under Gainor’s vision and leadership, Sony Pictures acquired Nurulize, a startup company whose software lets users edit, color and enhance volumetrically captured images in a real-time collaborative environment.
Gainor shepherded the first-ever use of Sony’s flagship consumer-based alpha 7SII cameras on Screen Gems productions. As the executive-producer of the romantic comedy Think Like a Man, he used his sustainability acumen and approved the studio film to be shot exclusively with LED lights and no large generators, the first of its kind. This change lowered the production costs, leaned into environmental sustainability, and allowed the movie to be shot in and around Culver City. Gainor’s dedication to maintaining environmentally sustainable productions began in 2007 when he oversaw the construction of the super-structure for the movie Quarantine. The same structure was repurposed for seven productions including The Stepfather, Takers, and Obsessed. Gainor also swapped out traditional wood-based sets for eco-friendly fiberboard panels for the movies Possession of Hannah Grace and Proud Mary.
Gainor’s efforts in sustainability and technology have been recognized by numerous organizations. Also, the Environmental Media Association awarded Screen Gems with the Green Seal for implementing sustainable production practices and raising environmental awareness; an EMA Certification on every film released for Screen Gems; LA’s City Council has twice recognized Gainor’s commitment to environmentally friendly production practices in Los Angeles and implication of new technology in the motion picture industry; and Gainor received the California on Location Signature Award, for his efforts to preserve California’s film industry and culture.
Before joining Screen Gems, Gainor had much success producing three pictures for Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison: Strange Wilderness, Grandma’s Boy and Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo. He executive-produced Nicolas Cage’s directorial debut, Sonny, and served as line producer on the critically acclaimed Panic, directed by Henry Bromell. Gainor co-produced George Hickenlooper’s The Man from Elysian Fields, as well as the top selling Sundance picture, Happy Texas.
Gainor is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, the Directors Guild of America, the Producers Guild of America, and the Television Academy. He is a graduate of the film program at California State University at Northridge, and recipient of the 2010 Cinematheque Award from the Department of Cinema.