Early life
Gilbert grew up in London, Ontario.2 He attended McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario but left before completing his degree.2 In 1993 he relocated between Los Angeles and Vancouver to pursue a career in music management and licensing, spending roughly fourteen years working with artists and handling the international licensing of music for film and television.34 During this period he also consulted at Mainframe Entertainment, a Vancouver-based computer animation studio that produced content for Mattel, Hasbro, and other major toy companies.4
Career
Entry into film
Gilbert's transition into film production came unexpectedly. Around 2009-2010, a friend working on the low-budget Canadian drama Daydream Nation called and said the production was in trouble and needed someone to mobilize financing.4 Gilbert had never worked in film but managed to put the money together, and the experience opened a door he never closed.4 He also established a parallel role as Managing Director of Media House Capital, a senior lending operation in the film and television financing market, which gave him a structural understanding of debt and equity in independent production.5
BRON Studios (2010-2023)
In 2010, Gilbert and his wife Brenda Gilbert co-founded BRON Media Corporation, headquartered in Burnaby, British Columbia.4 The company name is a portmanteau of the founders' own names: BRenda and aarON.4 Based in Burnaby with offices in Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, and Vancouver, BRON grew into multiple divisions including BRON Animation, BRON Creative, BRON Digital, BRON Releasing, and BRON Ventures (production facilities).
Gilbert's approach was to position BRON as an owner/producer rather than a service provider, emphasizing that the company never did service work for other studios.4 His stated philosophy was to make films that were "critically and culturally significant and at the same time commercially relevant."4
BRON's early slate included The Birth of a Nation (2016, Nate Parker),6 Fences (2016, Denzel Washington), The Front Runner (2018, Jason Reitman), and Tully (2018). The company's profile rose sharply in 2019 with Joker (Todd Phillips), in which BRON held a roughly 25% stake through its $100 million co-financing deal with Warner Bros.7 The film grossed over $1 billion worldwide, earned 11 Academy Award nominations, and won two Oscars including Best Actor for Joaquin Phoenix.5 That same year BRON executive produced Bombshell, which earned three Academy Award nominations.5
By 2021, BRON was among the most active independent financiers in Hollywood, with slate deals totaling $200 million with MGM and Sony Pictures for eight films,1 plus an earlier $100 million Warner Bros. co-financing arrangement.7 Gilbert was named to Variety's annual Variety500 list of top entertainment business leaders in both 2020 and 2021.1
Major credits from the BRON era include:
- The Birth of a Nation (2016)
- Fences (2016)
- The Addams Family (2019)
- Joker (2019)
- Bombshell (2019)
- Queen & Slim (2019)
- Greyhound (2020)
- Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)
- House of Gucci (2021)
- Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)
- Licorice Pizza (2021)
- Pieces of a Woman (2020)
- Thirteen Lives (2022)
- The Willoughbys (2020)
Across these and other productions, BRON received 38 Academy Award nominations and 6 wins, 39 BAFTA Award nominations and 9 wins, 13 Emmy Award nominations and 3 wins, and more than 450 film festival award nominations and wins.1
Bankruptcy and controversy
On July 19, 2023, BRON Media Corporation filed for creditor protection in Canada and Chapter 15 bankruptcy protection in the United States.89 Gilbert stated at the time: "Having explored many options for many months, Bron had no choice but to take this step in light of its financial circumstances," citing the COVID-19 pandemic and the concurrent WGA and SAG-AFTRA industry strikes as contributing factors.8 At the time of filing, BRON held roughly $148 million in assets against nearly $420 million in outstanding liabilities.5
The bankruptcy proceedings arrived alongside earlier fraud allegations. An April 2023 report from the American Bar Association documented a $100 million securities fraud involving loans made to BRON productions by Crystal Wealth Management.10 The report stated that "there appears to be clear evidence that Gilbert, Thibault, and Smith worked together to mislead Crystal Wealth's auditor BDO by coordinating their responses to inquiries about the financial position of the film loans."10 The matter was part of broader legal proceedings at the time of BRON's closure.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife
Gilbert served as executive producer on Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which was released on November 19, 2021.11 BRON's involvement came through the $200 million co-financing deal with MGM and Sony Pictures that covered eight films, with Ghostbusters: Afterlife as one of the slate titles.1 The film was directed by Jason Reitman and produced by Ivan Reitman, serving as a continuation of the original Ghostbusters continuity.
