John Campea

Giovanni Burton "John" Campea (born 26 February 1972), is a Canadian YouTuber, film critic, podcaster, director, writer, producer, and editor. Campea founded and ran the film website, "The Movie Blog" from June 2003 to December 2009. He then went on to become the editor-in-chief of AMC Movie News from September 2008 to June 2015. Shortly after that he was hired by Complex to run "Collider Movie Talk" beginning in July 2015. During his time there, he served as senior producer, host and showrunner of all of the programs. He resigned twice, once in January 2016, but returned in September of that year, and left permanently in June 2017. After he resigned, he began to release videos on his YouTube channel.
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 "", "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", "The One", and Frank Miller's "Sin City". 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. 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".
He quit "The Movie Blog" in late 2009 to focus on developing the news site for AMC called AMC Movie News, 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. It played at several film festivals in North America and received favorable reviews. He completed filming his first feature film, "The Anniversary", in 2009. Campea now runs his own production company, "Carson Drive Media" (named after his childhood street), 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 the 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. 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. 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". 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. The Kindle edition of "The Pride" was released on February 29, 2016, with a physical copy going on sale at a later date.
"The John Campea Show".
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 daily. Robert Meyer Burnett and Erin Cummings usually join him as co-hosts on the show on most weekdays and Thursdays, respectively. By March 2021, his own channel has amassed over 240,000 subscribers.
"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.
Personal life.
Campea has been married to his wife Ann Ora Campea since 2010. They have two dogs named Lily and Shadow. John is a mixed martial arts practitioner having trained at former UFC Heavyweight Champion Randy Couture's gym Legends MMA and at the UFC training center.