February 26, 2025 • 34 mins
Legion M CEO on 'My Dead Friend Zoe' Release and Building First Fan-Owned Media Company
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to Strictly Business Variety, weekly podcasts featuring conversations about
the business of media and entertainment. I'm senior business writer,
TV and video games Jennifer Moss. Found up in twenty sixteen,
legion M billed itself as the first fan owned media company,
using disruptive new equity crowdfunding laws that allow people to
(00:27):
invest as little as forty dollars to own a piece
of the company. Legionem has produced films including My Dead
Friend Zoe, a hit at last year south By Southwest
that's set to launch in theaters February twenty eighth, and
the documentary William Shatner. You can call me Bill. Here
to speak with us today about legion M's philosophy and
business model is co founder and CEO Paul Scanlon. Thank
(00:59):
you for taking it time to join me today, and
it's exciting to finally be talking about the release of
My Dead Friend Zoe after I had the pleasure of
seeing it at south By last year, so.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
The very first time I was shown, Yes, it was.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Exciting, it was a big deal, and you guys came
out very well out of south By with that prize,
and yeah, let's start there, let's start with that as
as a good starting point for what Legion IV is
trying to do and and that being an example of
one of your projects. So can you start there.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Absolutely. Yeah, thank you, Jenny, it's nice to see you again.
And uh yeah, we're approaching that moment that we've been
working towards for, you know, multiple years now. And Kyle
Housman Stokes, our writer and director, is I mean, this
has been this is his life's work. I mean, the
movie is really about his life. But we're we're really
(01:57):
excited about it because you know, it's it's been a journey,
you know, working on this film, and but also we
really feel like this film is very important, you know,
and it's a movie that can you know, have a
purpose and and do good for society and help people.
(02:18):
It's also entertaining and you know, as you as you
know you've seen it, it's it's it's funny and it's
also tragic at the same time, which is you know,
as Natalie Morales likes to say, it's like that's what
life is like, you know, that's what our lives are like.
And uh yeah, So we'll be releasing the film with
Briar Cliff On the twenty eighth. We're excited to be
(02:40):
working with Tom Mortenberg and his team and they've been
doing a great job getting you know everything, everything's set up,
but it's yeah, it's going to go out and it's
going to be in theaters. And one of the things
that like for Legion them, it's really you know, it's culminating,
you know, peak for us because you know, when we
started this film, like, this is a film that you know,
(03:01):
it really embodies the Legion M model, which is, you know, Kyle,
it's the first time feature director. You know, we learned
about this story through one of our advisors, Richard Silverman,
connected us to him, and you know, we took it
to our community, which we always do. I mean, just
(03:23):
as you're familiar with our community. But Legion M is
a fan and owned entertainment company and what that means
is that we're guided by and supported by our community,
and so before we embark on these long journeys, we
we always go to them and say, hey, what do
you what do you guys think of these projects? And
this was a project that really resonated with our community,
(03:46):
and so you know, it's not just the team that's
been working on this, that is excited and anticipating this release.
But the thousands and tens of thousands of people that
are you know, a part of Legion M are really
kind of, you know, right there at our side anticipating
this release as well.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Let's go back, you know, to the launch was started
leave you I'm twenty sixteen. Let's let's talk about, you know,
the idea for a fan owned media company and what
that would mean, where that came from, and what it
actually means to be owned by fans and liman terms,
how you would exscribe it people, what does that mean?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah, sure, So well, back in twenty sixteen, there's really
you know, we were you know, just getting started, and
there was really a concept and a little bit of
an experiment. I mean actually one hundred percent in experiment.
You know, my co founder Jeff Anderson, he and I
have started three companies together. We started a very successful
streaming company early on. Then we did a kind of
(04:47):
similar model in music, you know, for a few years,
and when we decided to do Legion M, where we're
really kind of looking at a couple of the combination
of a few things, which is the first thing is
understanding because you know, we're we're entertainment executives like that
came to the industry from Silicon Valley side, so we're
(05:10):
a little bit of like insiders with an outsider's perspective,
I guess, or just looking at like the industry critically
and like looking at ways that we can improve it
or try to, you know, do things differently. And one
of the things that I think is a kind of
fairly common refrain from people in the industry and outside
(05:33):
the industry is that, you know, our Hollywood's obsession with
the built in audience has created a little bit of
a paradox right where we prioritize existing IP over anything
else and then we're starving for fresh ideas. And one
of the things that we really feel like Legion M
can represent is this entertainment company that's owned by a
(05:56):
built in audience, but that built in audience is diverse
and it's versatile, so it's not tied to existing IP
or you know, focused on retreading and existing franchise. Where
versatile we can introduce the introduce new concepts and new
fresh IP and hopefully get birth to some some new
(06:18):
franchises in the future.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
So when it when it comes to development. How does
Legion M handle something like that when you're looking at
what projects to do? Is it done by fan consensus
and how does that work?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, it's a great question. I wouldn't say we like
fan consensus would be like a strong way of describing it,
like fan guided one hundred percent. You know, like we
go to our community and but we never like put
projects up like for a vote and have them compete
against each other or anything like that. It's more that
we have we have a part of our platform, our
(06:52):
communication platform that we call Impulse and impulses anytime we're
looking for feedback on something, it could be on new
projects that were considering. It could be you know, trailers
that could be casting, it could be anything like we
you know, anytime either ourselves or our partners are looking
for feedback, we have this sort of you know, built
(07:14):
in focus group. We can go to them and you know,
we can pose these questions and literally overnight we can
have tens of thousands of people giving us feedback and
so we'll know like oh okay, you know, and leg
to them like one thing that's really important to us
and this was something that we made this promise when
we started the company is that we genuinely care about
(07:36):
what the community wants. You know, We're not just here
to like produce content that I think is good and
I'm just gonna tell everyone else they should like it.
We really believe that this collaborative approach to it where
we can get that early insight and understanding and know
that like, okay, we're working on a project that is resonating,
(07:56):
and so like in the case of my dead friend Zoe,
this is exactly what we did like before we you know,
we met Kyle, we were impressed by the project. It
didn't have any cast, it was just a screenplay and
Kyle had made a short film that was very compelling,
and you know, we were moved by it. But then
(08:17):
we put that out to our community and just said, hey,
you know, what do you think. We know that we've
got a lot of military and veterans. I mean, what's
nice about Legion M is we're literally like a cross
section of society. You know, we're not in one direction.
We're not one political party, We're not one you know,
like demographic, we're not one geographic. You know, We're across
(08:41):
section and that's by design. Like we really want to
be you know, a diverse community because we believe that
content can you know, it doesn't. We have so many
things that are divisive in our world today. Uh, and
content can be divisive, but content can also be unifying.
And that's one thing that like we really care about,
(09:01):
like we want, you know, all of our projects aren't
going to have the same level of purpose that like
my dead friend Zoe has, but everything will have some meaning,
some important meaning to it. But anyway, so we put
this out to our community and yeah, they've really you know, resonated,
and so we have very positive feedback. So we knew
we're onto something. But then that that measure gets tested
(09:27):
when we when we start the project because typically, and
not always, sometimes we're just developing something and we already
have the finance lined up or a buyer or something else.
But in other cases, we plan to finance it ourselves.
And if we're financing it ourselves, then you know, we're
going to go out to our community just to back
up and explain. So we have over fifty thousand investors
(09:50):
that co own the company. They've invested in the production
company which is leading them, and that's a company that
we expect to continue to grow and we'll have a
diverse portfolio of content in the feature film space and
also in television. But from time to time, and because
we asked our community, like what else could we be
doing that we're not doing, and they said, hey, when
(10:12):
you know, when you go out and you're looking for
finance for films, come to us. We want to make
direct investments into those projects. And so we did that
with my dead friend Zoe. It was the second project
we did. The first project was our William Shatner documentary
that we financed, fully financed that project with our community
(10:34):
with two emails in four days, and we had enough money.
We had to turn it off because we're like, okay,
we have enough money. It's a documentary we don't need,
you know, And so you know, we we produced that film.
It also premiered it south By. It's got a theatrical release,
was one of the top performing, you know, documentaries of
that year. And now it's out in the marketplace and
(10:55):
doing well, and you know, money is going to be
coming back to our community, the ones that made the
direct investment. So we always tell you know, we're never
high pressure in our community, like it's always purely optional,
and we're really transparent about the risks. This is one
thing that I think, you know, not a lot of
producers and fundraisers in this industry do very well, is
(11:16):
like explain how risky these investments are. But we also
want to, like we believe that Legion m is one
of those levers that can reduce the risk on investment,
you know, And so we took this one out. My
Dead friend Zoe was our next film that we were
going to finance directly with our community. And you know,
(11:36):
I'm not going to talk about the budget of the
film because you know it's but two thirds of the
finance came from our community, like and just by sending
emails and letting them know about it. And that was
a substantial amount of money, like much more than what
we needed. I mean, we have Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris,
and Eka, Martin Green, Natalie More, we have a cast.
(11:59):
Well what's amazing about this is when we went to
our community, like they have been there from the time
that it was just a script. They were there when
we got Ed Harris, they were there when we got
Morgan Freeman. And these are celebration events like when we
when we attached Morgan Freeman to our community, we tell
them and of course everybody celebrates and you know, it's
(12:20):
and it's these galvanizing moments. And then you know, you
were there at South Bay when we premiered the film.
We probably had you know, two hundred of our investors
in the film were there, you know, celebrating with us.
But so you know, we also have another partner. So
in that case we had Radiant Media Studios was our
(12:40):
other finance partner. So they brought in the other third
of the money. That included Travis Kelce who's one of
the EPs on the project. And you know, they've been
a great partner. So it's really been you know, it's
been this awesome journey, you know that our community. And actually,
if you're interested, I can share with you just some
of the feedback that we get from the people involved
(13:03):
that are making these direct investments. And you know why
they make that investment, you know, because most of our investors, yeah,
it's a financial decision, but it's really an emotional decision.
They want to be a part of something, they want
to back something that is worthy and has purpose. But
then they get all this emotional ROI from you know,
(13:23):
being there at south By or you know, celebrating these
wins when we attach and now that we're getting a
theatrical release, you know, this is one of the things
that like when we when we started this project, we
can't promise them that the movie's ever going to be
in theaters. You know, that's not like we're not making,
you know, movies that are guaranteed to get that. So
(13:45):
to be able to get that and to get the
Briarcliffe level of support, and then we do. We haven't
announced it yet, but we do have a major studio
that picked up the worldwide rights to the film, which
is amazing for us and it's really good financially for
our investors because that matters to us because we want
them to want to do this again.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
How sooner are we going to be annouing the worldwide partner.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
That's a great question. We have a call tomorrow. I'm hoping.
I'm hoping it's coming soon. I mean, we're releasing in
just a couple of weeks, so yeah, February twenty.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Yes, all right, No, I mean that's amazing to hear
and the understanding of why people are looking to do
this so I know that based on the Job Act,
it was that allowed people to invest as little as
forty dollars to own a piece of the company. Is
that correct? And so I want to know what that
looks like for investors versus what they get returns, what
(14:40):
shares are worth, profit sharing, that kind of thing, and
how you will break down that internet?
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely so yeah, so we there's two ways
to invest in Legion them. So the first one is
investing in the company itself, and we always tell anyone
considering that investment just know that this is a very
high risk investment in a startup.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
I mean we've been around for nine years, so we're
not exactly the startup, but we're.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Like a new levels of startup.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Yeah, We're not a huge studio, you're We're a new
entrant in a very dynamic, hit driven space. Right, So
it's a risky Like, we just are very transparent with
people that like, don't invest more than you can afford
to lose. Statistically, the most likely outcome is that Legion
M goes out of business trying to do what we what.
(15:28):
You know, it's just a reality that every entrepreneur needs
to understand. It's what motivates us is because we are
it is life or death. Everything is life or death.
But if we're successful, we believe that we can go
on and create a company that is one of the
more one of the most valuable companies in the space.
(15:48):
And that's what we're focused on. So the average investor
puts like four hundred dollars in the minimum investment. In
our last round, we lowered the minimum investment to just
forty dollars. You invest, you can buy shares for just
forty dollars. There's still their Jobs Act shares, so there
you can sell them. There are some rules around it,
but you can sell them, but there's no like open
(16:10):
market to sell them, so there's not a lot of
liquidity with those investments. But our plan is, you know,
and we don't talk about a timeline or anything like
that just yet, but our plan is to ultimately take
the company public right and there'll be a point in
time where we're required to do that by the SEC
because we already have fifty thousand investors, so at some
(16:32):
point we're just going to need to list it at
a very minimum and more likely like take it through
and take it through an IPM. But so the investors
that invested in that first round, you know, invested at
a share value that's been going up ever since. And
so you know, I don't know the exact statistic, but
they probably tripled their money, you know, assuming that they
(16:53):
could you know, liquidate and sell the shares. And you know,
so every round. We just closed our ninth it was
our largest round that we've ever had, and we're about
to open our tenth round. So we'll be opening that
actually by the time this podcast there is, it'll it'll
it'll be open hopefully not on what but so that'll
(17:15):
be our tenth round. We you know, every time we
do this because the company, you know, the valuation of
the company is determined by several factors. One is the
you know, diversity and value of the projects that we're
involved in. Also the size of our community, right because
the bigger our community gets, the more valuable the company is.
(17:35):
And then of course our revenue and other financial metrics,
and all of those have been trending upwards, right like
our our slate keeps growing with bigger and to be honest,
like I mean better projects like my dead friend Zoe is,
I mean, it's it's you know, it's one of the
best projects that we've ever been involved in. And it's
(17:55):
not just a project that we're involved in, like we
this is our project, Like this was what we call
born at Legion M project, Like we incubated this from
you know, from script to screen and everything. You know,
we're the producers of it. So we did, you know,
everything along the way. And you know, we have several
more projects in development. We have one in post production
(18:18):
right now that we're really excited about. We just watched
the first rough cut from the director and it just
completely blew us away. And when you see it, you'll
understand why we did this project because it's literally about
it's a comedic, ironic horror film about pre existing IP. Yeah,
(18:39):
it's great.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
We'll be back with more from Legion M's Paul Scanlan
after this break. Is that sage black or is there another?
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (18:56):
When it when it comes with who you're looking to
partner with for these projects and things, you know, from
the investor side, the fanside, that base is there. By
the way, I think you said that one of your
long term goals is one million shoholders, and now you're
at fifty thousand, right, So that's where we are in
that count.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah. So if you look at our logo,
our logo is an M with the bar over it
and that so we built that long term goal into
our logo. So the mbar is a Roman numeral for
one million. That's our goal. And you know, things like
people say to us, well you're at fifty thousand, we
still have a long way to go, and that is true.
(19:33):
But it's also we're growing like a snowball. You know.
It's like the bigger we get, the faster we grow.
We also, we don't expect that we would need to
have a million investors before we take the company in public.
It's more likely because right now there's still a pretty
not a big hurdle, but there are hurdles to investing.
You know, you got to go sign up at this
website sec platform, and then in the next round will
(19:57):
actually be investors can buy shares directly from our website,
which is an exciting kind of development because it'll reduce
some of the barriers. You know, you have to provide
your self security number. It's not like you just go
into your brokerage account and you buy the shares, right,
So it's a little more complicated, but eventually we'll be
able to like just sell you the shares and your
(20:18):
brokerage account.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
So with that and with the fans and investors and
everything and what you have going into the projects. What
does it look like on the other side when you're
looking for distribution partners, when you're working within the more
established Hollywood framework and doing something more disruptive on the
fundraising side and on the ownership side, and then looking
(20:41):
for traditional partners to work with, or maybe untraditional partners
like for example, the Briar Cliff Like, how do you
go to them? And you're like, well, this is my difference, Zoway,
this is what we want to do. How does that
go from a conception at Legion M to taking it
to the traditional model.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Yeah, that's a great question. I would say this is
one of the areas where, you know, things really opened
up for Legion M. Like I think when we when
we started, you know, I mean industries, not just Hollywood,
but any industries oftentimes kind of reluctant to like new
things or new things that they don't quite understand. And
I think that we we we had a little bit
(21:19):
of resistance to Legion M in the early days, you know,
and and it took us a while to kind of
even just explain to people what it is and you know,
help them not worry too much about it, that this
is like actually a good thing. Now, I'd say that,
like the vast majority of people we talked to are
very excited about the legion M element, Like about our
(21:41):
business model isn't a risk factor anymore, it's a value contributor.
Like they realize that, like, oh wow, this is a
film that's coming to us and we're going to be
the distributor. But we know we have a built an audience,
you know that a vibrant, engaged community of people that
are excited for this film. I know, you know Tom
(22:02):
Rtenberg at Briarcliffs that really mattered to him. You know that.
It's almost like, you know, Morgan Freeman has an audience,
you know, Ed Harris has an audience, Sunique Natalie everybody,
you know, veterans, the genre, et cetera. But then legion M.
That's this other element which is like oh yeah, and
then plus you get all these you know, this legion
M community of advocates and supporters and people that will
(22:26):
pre buy tickets and you know, make sure that we
can you know, get people out and amplify all the
press and other things that we're that we'll be getting.
So yeah, and then you know, you got the Travis kelceyman.
I mean, you've got a lot.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
So you touched on this a little bit. But I'd
like to go back now just to your background and
Jeff's background and what really brought you to this now
and where you started and what contributes to legion.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
M sure so well, so our background, So Jeff and
I we we started a company back in the early
two thousands called mob tv. It was one of the
early streaming uh pioneers. We were like an early version
of like Netflix, but for live TV back then like
the vod thing hadn't and we were targeting mobile phones.
We were the first company to stream the mobile phones.
(23:16):
And we we grew that company like it grew like
like wildfire. I mean it was you know, we we
grew to you know, hundreds of employees and close to
one hundred million in annual revenues and offices around the world.
It was actually this incredible experience and a real you
know journey, and we won an Emmy, uh with that
(23:38):
company because we were you know, it was funny because
when we started it, we were, you know, the industry
wasn't quite sure, like, oh, people would tell us like, well,
no one's going to watch video or TV on their
cell phones. That's a bad idea. But keep in mind
cell phones weren't what they are today. You know, they
were just getting the color displays. And but anyway, so
we we had a lot of success with that, and
(24:00):
and we had peeled out. I stayed at the company,
Jeff peeled out, and we launched something called New York
Rocket Exchange, which was kind of like an early almost NFT,
like it was a little too early. We were anticipating
the Jobs Act coming, but then the Jobs Act ended
up taking multiple years. So then when I was getting
(24:21):
ready to leave, New York, Rocket Exchange hadn't quite worked out.
But then so Jeff and I teamed up again and
we started this company, and we had some amazing partners
that came on board. Because when we first started, like, yeah,
we had our background, we had you know, we had
our Emmys, but we we didn't have like a slate
(24:41):
of projects or anything. It was really just very conceptual.
But you know, we had Stupid Buddy Studios came on
board with us. We had Neon. We had you know,
the founders of Neon, Tim League and Christian Parts and
advisors like that. We had Lisa tay Back from Netflix
or you know, later got bought by Netflix. We had
this incredible like group of people that understood what we
(25:04):
were trying to do and we're willing to like help
us accomplish it. And today we're you know, when we
look back at that, it's like it's funny because we think, like,
how did we even do that? Like we had nothing.
We were just like explaining what we wanted to do.
But we you know, we we we made it happen.
And today we're just you know, we feel like we've
(25:26):
got we have winded our sales. But at a time
where the industry is facing a lot of volatility, right
and so you know a lot of people would ask
us like, well, oh, but isn't the industry facing a
lot of you know, uncertainty, And I would say, you know,
we like you'd have to have your head in the
sands to not feel that that's the case. But we
(25:48):
feel like that that's where the opportunities are, you know,
fear is driving decision making in Hollywood right now. You know,
studios are cutting back, streamers have become more powerful than ever.
Risk take is at an all time low. But that's
exactly why legion M is so important. Like that's where
you know, if if the c's were calm and everything
(26:09):
was like normal and everything was thriving, it would probably
be a lot harder for legion M to even you know,
kind of get noticed. And so we're we're motivated by
you know, where we are. I mean, we watched the
industry you know had uh, but but we're we have
a very like optimistic you know, forecast for you know,
(26:31):
the people's appetite for content is not going to do
And you know, one of the things that we always say,
you know, and I think it's important with legion M's
model is, no matter what happens with the industry, how
we consume content, whether it's you know, streaming or in
a theater or you know, wherever those trends end up,
(26:51):
the one thing that will never stop mattering is the audience,
right because there is no industry without this audience. We're
the ones, you know, the audience we pay for everything.
You know, they are the fuel that drives everything, and
so you know, that's our focus is to like we
want to we want to have the best possible connection
(27:12):
to that audience. And you know, we feel like in
the future, you know that that audience can be the
you know, the the industry won't be determined by who
has the deepest pockets, It'll be determined by who has
the deepest relationship with the audience.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Your audience are your investors as well, though, and so
wondering about you know, separate from the industry, but just
looking at the country as a whole, macro economic concerns
the new administration. If you see chances of investors going
down because people choosing where they are going to put
their money and where they are going to spend their
money at this time.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
It's a really good question. I don't I think because
we are you know, the average investor puts like four
hundred dollars in you know, we're really not focused on like, oh,
you know, we're a core part of your diversified portfolio
and you need to move from Legionham into bonds or
something like that. I mean, we're really like disposable gambling.
(28:13):
You know, it's like that that's literally how we think
about it. Like, and the people that are investing, you know,
are investing because they believe in what we're doing and
they want to be a part of it, and that
owning shares. And we have a lot of people that
invest in every round. They might only put you know,
one hundred dollars or maybe a few hundred dollars in
(28:34):
every round, but they're in for every round. So we
know when we open up a new round, they're going
to be in. You know, they want to buy in
every every round. And you know, the company, I think
we continued to I mean, look, it's a it's a
pretty big audience of people in a community, and so
we it's hard to like make everybody happy. But we're like,
(28:57):
I feel like we're doing a good job there, like
because we really do have a diverse portfolio. Like we
tell people like, look, you're not gonna love every project
we do, Like maybe you will. I mean that there'll
be some people that that do. But you know, some
people want more horror, some people want more drama. You know,
whatever we're going to have, we're going to do all
of it. And you know, one of our our most
(29:20):
exciting projects, like the project that is it's hard to
say most exciting because we love all of our children,
but we have a project that we've been working on
for a couple of years and and it's full kind
of blossomed, you know, incarnation. It will be the perfect
(29:41):
prototype for what legen m represents because it's a it's
a project. It's called Definan. It's the story of Robert
Small's I don't know if you've ever heard of this
story or if we've spoken about it in the past.
I can follow up and send you some information about it,
but this is a this is a story that came
to us from our community. Like I had never heard
(30:02):
of Robert Smalls. Most people have never heard of Robert Smalls.
I mean that's Robert Smalls was an enslaved man working
on a Confederate warship during the Civil War. When I
start to describe this, maybe you've heard about it. But
so one night and what's got to be the most
audacious heist in the history of the world. He stole
the ship that he was working on, filled it with
(30:25):
other enslaved family members and their friends or in their family,
and sailed it to freedom. In this just unbelievable Ocean's
eleven style heist. But the story doesn't stop there. So
when he sells it to Freedom, it's very you know, tenuous,
high stakes, you know, heist. He gets it to, surrenders
(30:47):
it to the North, has to sail past you know,
Fort Sumter and the darkened night and do the codes
and everything. It's just an unbelievable story. So then they
surrender it to the North. They had lined the ship
with dynamite because they if they were going to be
taken down, they were just gonna they didn't want to
be be caught because that would have been the worst
(31:09):
possible situation. But so after they surrender it Lincoln, he
mates with Lincoln. Lincoln puts him on an evangelizing tour
where he's you know, building support for the for the
war and helping to get black Americans to fight on
behalf of the North, which is ultimately what turned the tide.
Lincoln made him a captain the same ship that he
(31:31):
stole they re you know, patrioted as a Northern ship.
Made him a captain. He sailed in like fourteen naval battles,
became the first. After the war is over, he moves
back South. He's from Charleston. This is where the Heighstriok place.
He becomes one of the first black congressmen, starts the
first compulsory public schools, buys his former slave master's plantation.
(31:54):
I mean, this guy is a legend, an absolute legend,
and you know, it's a true story, and it's been
out there and no one's made this movie yet. And
so our community said, hey, you know, there's this incredible,
you know, story out there. Why won't Hollywood or why
won't the industry, you know, tell this story? And you know,
we're always really pragmatic when we take on a project,
(32:16):
and this was a few years ago, and we said, well, look,
this sounds amazing, like what an incredible story. But just
to set expectations, you know, we can't just like wave
our fingers and make a movie like. There's a lot
that goes into it. There could be other projects in
the works. And fast forward to today, we are publishing
a graphic novel about like and we have schools and
(32:40):
libraries ordering them already. It's going to be an award
winning book. I can we can share with you what
it looks like, but it tells the full and complete story.
We have Rob Edwards, the screenwriter of the New Captain
America movie and screenwriter of Fresh Prince of bel Air
and I treasure plan it and it's just this unbelievable
(33:06):
like team that's come together. Now we have the Robert
Small's family involved in our project like we have there
and we and so we are it'll be historically accurate.
I mean, it's just this awesome project. And so it's
a graphic novel. It's also a movie that we're in
development on, and you know, it's it's just this exciting
project that our community, they're the ones that asked us
(33:29):
to do it, and now we're we're doing it great.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Well, thank you so much for your time today, Paul.
I so appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Yeah, thank you. Now, this has been lovely and I
appreciate you you having us on the show and including us.
It's been great.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Thanks for listening. Be sure to leave us a review
at Apple Podcasts or Amazon Music. We love to hear
from listeners. Please go to Variety dot com and sign
up for the free weekly Strictly Business newsletter, and don't
forget to tune in next week for another episode of
Strictly Business
Welcome to Strictly Business Variety, weekly podcasts featuring conversations about
the business of media and entertainment. I'm senior business writer,
TV and video games Jennifer Moss. Found up in twenty sixteen,
legion M billed itself as the first fan owned media company,
using disruptive new equity crowdfunding laws that allow people to
(00:27):
invest as little as forty dollars to own a piece
of the company. Legionem has produced films including My Dead
Friend Zoe, a hit at last year south By Southwest
that's set to launch in theaters February twenty eighth, and
the documentary William Shatner. You can call me Bill. Here
to speak with us today about legion M's philosophy and
business model is co founder and CEO Paul Scanlon. Thank
(00:59):
you for taking it time to join me today, and
it's exciting to finally be talking about the release of
My Dead Friend Zoe after I had the pleasure of
seeing it at south By last year, so.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
The very first time I was shown, Yes, it was.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Exciting, it was a big deal, and you guys came
out very well out of south By with that prize,
and yeah, let's start there, let's start with that as
as a good starting point for what Legion IV is
trying to do and and that being an example of
one of your projects. So can you start there.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Absolutely. Yeah, thank you, Jenny, it's nice to see you again.
And uh yeah, we're approaching that moment that we've been
working towards for, you know, multiple years now. And Kyle
Housman Stokes, our writer and director, is I mean, this
has been this is his life's work. I mean, the
movie is really about his life. But we're we're really
(01:57):
excited about it because you know, it's it's been a journey,
you know, working on this film, and but also we
really feel like this film is very important, you know,
and it's a movie that can you know, have a
purpose and and do good for society and help people.
(02:18):
It's also entertaining and you know, as you as you
know you've seen it, it's it's it's funny and it's
also tragic at the same time, which is you know,
as Natalie Morales likes to say, it's like that's what
life is like, you know, that's what our lives are like.
And uh yeah, So we'll be releasing the film with
Briar Cliff On the twenty eighth. We're excited to be
(02:40):
working with Tom Mortenberg and his team and they've been
doing a great job getting you know everything, everything's set up,
but it's yeah, it's going to go out and it's
going to be in theaters. And one of the things
that like for Legion them, it's really you know, it's culminating,
you know, peak for us because you know, when we
started this film, like, this is a film that you know,
(03:01):
it really embodies the Legion M model, which is, you know, Kyle,
it's the first time feature director. You know, we learned
about this story through one of our advisors, Richard Silverman,
connected us to him, and you know, we took it
to our community, which we always do. I mean, just
(03:23):
as you're familiar with our community. But Legion M is
a fan and owned entertainment company and what that means
is that we're guided by and supported by our community,
and so before we embark on these long journeys, we
we always go to them and say, hey, what do
you what do you guys think of these projects? And
this was a project that really resonated with our community,
(03:46):
and so you know, it's not just the team that's
been working on this, that is excited and anticipating this release.
But the thousands and tens of thousands of people that
are you know, a part of Legion M are really
kind of, you know, right there at our side anticipating
this release as well.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Let's go back, you know, to the launch was started
leave you I'm twenty sixteen. Let's let's talk about, you know,
the idea for a fan owned media company and what
that would mean, where that came from, and what it
actually means to be owned by fans and liman terms,
how you would exscribe it people, what does that mean?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah, sure, So well, back in twenty sixteen, there's really
you know, we were you know, just getting started, and
there was really a concept and a little bit of
an experiment. I mean actually one hundred percent in experiment.
You know, my co founder Jeff Anderson, he and I
have started three companies together. We started a very successful
streaming company early on. Then we did a kind of
(04:47):
similar model in music, you know, for a few years,
and when we decided to do Legion M, where we're
really kind of looking at a couple of the combination
of a few things, which is the first thing is
understanding because you know, we're we're entertainment executives like that
came to the industry from Silicon Valley side, so we're
(05:10):
a little bit of like insiders with an outsider's perspective,
I guess, or just looking at like the industry critically
and like looking at ways that we can improve it
or try to, you know, do things differently. And one
of the things that I think is a kind of
fairly common refrain from people in the industry and outside
(05:33):
the industry is that, you know, our Hollywood's obsession with
the built in audience has created a little bit of
a paradox right where we prioritize existing IP over anything
else and then we're starving for fresh ideas. And one
of the things that we really feel like Legion M
can represent is this entertainment company that's owned by a
(05:56):
built in audience, but that built in audience is diverse
and it's versatile, so it's not tied to existing IP
or you know, focused on retreading and existing franchise. Where
versatile we can introduce the introduce new concepts and new
fresh IP and hopefully get birth to some some new
(06:18):
franchises in the future.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
So when it when it comes to development. How does
Legion M handle something like that when you're looking at
what projects to do? Is it done by fan consensus
and how does that work?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, it's a great question. I wouldn't say we like
fan consensus would be like a strong way of describing it,
like fan guided one hundred percent. You know, like we
go to our community and but we never like put
projects up like for a vote and have them compete
against each other or anything like that. It's more that
we have we have a part of our platform, our
(06:52):
communication platform that we call Impulse and impulses anytime we're
looking for feedback on something, it could be on new
projects that were considering. It could be you know, trailers
that could be casting, it could be anything like we
you know, anytime either ourselves or our partners are looking
for feedback, we have this sort of you know, built
(07:14):
in focus group. We can go to them and you know,
we can pose these questions and literally overnight we can
have tens of thousands of people giving us feedback and
so we'll know like oh okay, you know, and leg
to them like one thing that's really important to us
and this was something that we made this promise when
we started the company is that we genuinely care about
(07:36):
what the community wants. You know, We're not just here
to like produce content that I think is good and
I'm just gonna tell everyone else they should like it.
We really believe that this collaborative approach to it where
we can get that early insight and understanding and know
that like, okay, we're working on a project that is resonating,
(07:56):
and so like in the case of my dead friend Zoe,
this is exactly what we did like before we you know,
we met Kyle, we were impressed by the project. It
didn't have any cast, it was just a screenplay and
Kyle had made a short film that was very compelling,
and you know, we were moved by it. But then
(08:17):
we put that out to our community and just said, hey,
you know, what do you think. We know that we've
got a lot of military and veterans. I mean, what's
nice about Legion M is we're literally like a cross
section of society. You know, we're not in one direction.
We're not one political party, We're not one you know,
like demographic, we're not one geographic. You know, We're across
(08:41):
section and that's by design. Like we really want to
be you know, a diverse community because we believe that
content can you know, it doesn't. We have so many
things that are divisive in our world today. Uh, and
content can be divisive, but content can also be unifying.
And that's one thing that like we really care about,
(09:01):
like we want, you know, all of our projects aren't
going to have the same level of purpose that like
my dead friend Zoe has, but everything will have some meaning,
some important meaning to it. But anyway, so we put
this out to our community and yeah, they've really you know, resonated,
and so we have very positive feedback. So we knew
we're onto something. But then that that measure gets tested
(09:27):
when we when we start the project because typically, and
not always, sometimes we're just developing something and we already
have the finance lined up or a buyer or something else.
But in other cases, we plan to finance it ourselves.
And if we're financing it ourselves, then you know, we're
going to go out to our community just to back
up and explain. So we have over fifty thousand investors
(09:50):
that co own the company. They've invested in the production
company which is leading them, and that's a company that
we expect to continue to grow and we'll have a
diverse portfolio of content in the feature film space and
also in television. But from time to time, and because
we asked our community, like what else could we be
doing that we're not doing, and they said, hey, when
(10:12):
you know, when you go out and you're looking for
finance for films, come to us. We want to make
direct investments into those projects. And so we did that
with my dead friend Zoe. It was the second project
we did. The first project was our William Shatner documentary
that we financed, fully financed that project with our community
(10:34):
with two emails in four days, and we had enough money.
We had to turn it off because we're like, okay,
we have enough money. It's a documentary we don't need,
you know, And so you know, we we produced that film.
It also premiered it south By. It's got a theatrical release,
was one of the top performing, you know, documentaries of
that year. And now it's out in the marketplace and
(10:55):
doing well, and you know, money is going to be
coming back to our community, the ones that made the
direct investment. So we always tell you know, we're never
high pressure in our community, like it's always purely optional,
and we're really transparent about the risks. This is one
thing that I think, you know, not a lot of
producers and fundraisers in this industry do very well, is
(11:16):
like explain how risky these investments are. But we also
want to, like we believe that Legion m is one
of those levers that can reduce the risk on investment,
you know, And so we took this one out. My
Dead friend Zoe was our next film that we were
going to finance directly with our community. And you know,
(11:36):
I'm not going to talk about the budget of the
film because you know it's but two thirds of the
finance came from our community, like and just by sending
emails and letting them know about it. And that was
a substantial amount of money, like much more than what
we needed. I mean, we have Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris,
and Eka, Martin Green, Natalie More, we have a cast.
(11:59):
Well what's amazing about this is when we went to
our community, like they have been there from the time
that it was just a script. They were there when
we got Ed Harris, they were there when we got
Morgan Freeman. And these are celebration events like when we
when we attached Morgan Freeman to our community, we tell
them and of course everybody celebrates and you know, it's
(12:20):
and it's these galvanizing moments. And then you know, you
were there at South Bay when we premiered the film.
We probably had you know, two hundred of our investors
in the film were there, you know, celebrating with us.
But so you know, we also have another partner. So
in that case we had Radiant Media Studios was our
(12:40):
other finance partner. So they brought in the other third
of the money. That included Travis Kelce who's one of
the EPs on the project. And you know, they've been
a great partner. So it's really been you know, it's
been this awesome journey, you know that our community. And actually,
if you're interested, I can share with you just some
of the feedback that we get from the people involved
(13:03):
that are making these direct investments. And you know why
they make that investment, you know, because most of our investors, yeah,
it's a financial decision, but it's really an emotional decision.
They want to be a part of something, they want
to back something that is worthy and has purpose. But
then they get all this emotional ROI from you know,
(13:23):
being there at south By or you know, celebrating these
wins when we attach and now that we're getting a
theatrical release, you know, this is one of the things
that like when we when we started this project, we
can't promise them that the movie's ever going to be
in theaters. You know, that's not like we're not making,
you know, movies that are guaranteed to get that. So
(13:45):
to be able to get that and to get the
Briarcliffe level of support, and then we do. We haven't
announced it yet, but we do have a major studio
that picked up the worldwide rights to the film, which
is amazing for us and it's really good financially for
our investors because that matters to us because we want
them to want to do this again.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
How sooner are we going to be annouing the worldwide partner.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
That's a great question. We have a call tomorrow. I'm hoping.
I'm hoping it's coming soon. I mean, we're releasing in
just a couple of weeks, so yeah, February twenty.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Yes, all right, No, I mean that's amazing to hear
and the understanding of why people are looking to do
this so I know that based on the Job Act,
it was that allowed people to invest as little as
forty dollars to own a piece of the company. Is
that correct? And so I want to know what that
looks like for investors versus what they get returns, what
(14:40):
shares are worth, profit sharing, that kind of thing, and
how you will break down that internet?
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely so yeah, so we there's two ways
to invest in Legion them. So the first one is
investing in the company itself, and we always tell anyone
considering that investment just know that this is a very
high risk investment in a startup.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
I mean we've been around for nine years, so we're
not exactly the startup, but we're.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Like a new levels of startup.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Yeah, We're not a huge studio, you're We're a new
entrant in a very dynamic, hit driven space. Right, So
it's a risky Like, we just are very transparent with
people that like, don't invest more than you can afford
to lose. Statistically, the most likely outcome is that Legion
M goes out of business trying to do what we what.
(15:28):
You know, it's just a reality that every entrepreneur needs
to understand. It's what motivates us is because we are
it is life or death. Everything is life or death.
But if we're successful, we believe that we can go
on and create a company that is one of the
more one of the most valuable companies in the space.
(15:48):
And that's what we're focused on. So the average investor
puts like four hundred dollars in the minimum investment. In
our last round, we lowered the minimum investment to just
forty dollars. You invest, you can buy shares for just
forty dollars. There's still their Jobs Act shares, so there
you can sell them. There are some rules around it,
but you can sell them, but there's no like open
(16:10):
market to sell them, so there's not a lot of
liquidity with those investments. But our plan is, you know,
and we don't talk about a timeline or anything like
that just yet, but our plan is to ultimately take
the company public right and there'll be a point in
time where we're required to do that by the SEC
because we already have fifty thousand investors, so at some
(16:32):
point we're just going to need to list it at
a very minimum and more likely like take it through
and take it through an IPM. But so the investors
that invested in that first round, you know, invested at
a share value that's been going up ever since. And
so you know, I don't know the exact statistic, but
they probably tripled their money, you know, assuming that they
(16:53):
could you know, liquidate and sell the shares. And you know,
so every round. We just closed our ninth it was
our largest round that we've ever had, and we're about
to open our tenth round. So we'll be opening that
actually by the time this podcast there is, it'll it'll
it'll be open hopefully not on what but so that'll
(17:15):
be our tenth round. We you know, every time we
do this because the company, you know, the valuation of
the company is determined by several factors. One is the
you know, diversity and value of the projects that we're
involved in. Also the size of our community, right because
the bigger our community gets, the more valuable the company is.
(17:35):
And then of course our revenue and other financial metrics,
and all of those have been trending upwards, right like
our our slate keeps growing with bigger and to be honest,
like I mean better projects like my dead friend Zoe is,
I mean, it's it's you know, it's one of the
best projects that we've ever been involved in. And it's
(17:55):
not just a project that we're involved in, like we
this is our project, Like this was what we call
born at Legion M project, Like we incubated this from
you know, from script to screen and everything. You know,
we're the producers of it. So we did, you know,
everything along the way. And you know, we have several
more projects in development. We have one in post production
(18:18):
right now that we're really excited about. We just watched
the first rough cut from the director and it just
completely blew us away. And when you see it, you'll
understand why we did this project because it's literally about
it's a comedic, ironic horror film about pre existing IP. Yeah,
(18:39):
it's great.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
We'll be back with more from Legion M's Paul Scanlan
after this break. Is that sage black or is there another?
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (18:56):
When it when it comes with who you're looking to
partner with for these projects and things, you know, from
the investor side, the fanside, that base is there. By
the way, I think you said that one of your
long term goals is one million shoholders, and now you're
at fifty thousand, right, So that's where we are in
that count.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah. So if you look at our logo,
our logo is an M with the bar over it
and that so we built that long term goal into
our logo. So the mbar is a Roman numeral for
one million. That's our goal. And you know, things like
people say to us, well you're at fifty thousand, we
still have a long way to go, and that is true.
(19:33):
But it's also we're growing like a snowball. You know.
It's like the bigger we get, the faster we grow.
We also, we don't expect that we would need to
have a million investors before we take the company in public.
It's more likely because right now there's still a pretty
not a big hurdle, but there are hurdles to investing.
You know, you got to go sign up at this
website sec platform, and then in the next round will
(19:57):
actually be investors can buy shares directly from our website,
which is an exciting kind of development because it'll reduce
some of the barriers. You know, you have to provide
your self security number. It's not like you just go
into your brokerage account and you buy the shares, right,
So it's a little more complicated, but eventually we'll be
able to like just sell you the shares and your
(20:18):
brokerage account.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
So with that and with the fans and investors and
everything and what you have going into the projects. What
does it look like on the other side when you're
looking for distribution partners, when you're working within the more
established Hollywood framework and doing something more disruptive on the
fundraising side and on the ownership side, and then looking
(20:41):
for traditional partners to work with, or maybe untraditional partners
like for example, the Briar Cliff Like, how do you
go to them? And you're like, well, this is my difference, Zoway,
this is what we want to do. How does that
go from a conception at Legion M to taking it
to the traditional model.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Yeah, that's a great question. I would say this is
one of the areas where, you know, things really opened
up for Legion M. Like I think when we when
we started, you know, I mean industries, not just Hollywood,
but any industries oftentimes kind of reluctant to like new
things or new things that they don't quite understand. And
I think that we we we had a little bit
(21:19):
of resistance to Legion M in the early days, you know,
and and it took us a while to kind of
even just explain to people what it is and you know,
help them not worry too much about it, that this
is like actually a good thing. Now, I'd say that,
like the vast majority of people we talked to are
very excited about the legion M element, Like about our
(21:41):
business model isn't a risk factor anymore, it's a value contributor.
Like they realize that, like, oh wow, this is a
film that's coming to us and we're going to be
the distributor. But we know we have a built an audience,
you know that a vibrant, engaged community of people that
are excited for this film. I know, you know Tom
(22:02):
Rtenberg at Briarcliffs that really mattered to him. You know that.
It's almost like, you know, Morgan Freeman has an audience,
you know, Ed Harris has an audience, Sunique Natalie everybody,
you know, veterans, the genre, et cetera. But then legion M.
That's this other element which is like oh yeah, and
then plus you get all these you know, this legion
M community of advocates and supporters and people that will
(22:26):
pre buy tickets and you know, make sure that we
can you know, get people out and amplify all the
press and other things that we're that we'll be getting.
So yeah, and then you know, you got the Travis kelceyman.
I mean, you've got a lot.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
So you touched on this a little bit. But I'd
like to go back now just to your background and
Jeff's background and what really brought you to this now
and where you started and what contributes to legion.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
M sure so well, so our background, So Jeff and
I we we started a company back in the early
two thousands called mob tv. It was one of the
early streaming uh pioneers. We were like an early version
of like Netflix, but for live TV back then like
the vod thing hadn't and we were targeting mobile phones.
We were the first company to stream the mobile phones.
(23:16):
And we we grew that company like it grew like
like wildfire. I mean it was you know, we we
grew to you know, hundreds of employees and close to
one hundred million in annual revenues and offices around the world.
It was actually this incredible experience and a real you
know journey, and we won an Emmy, uh with that
(23:38):
company because we were you know, it was funny because
when we started it, we were, you know, the industry
wasn't quite sure, like, oh, people would tell us like, well,
no one's going to watch video or TV on their
cell phones. That's a bad idea. But keep in mind
cell phones weren't what they are today. You know, they
were just getting the color displays. And but anyway, so
we we had a lot of success with that, and
(24:00):
and we had peeled out. I stayed at the company,
Jeff peeled out, and we launched something called New York
Rocket Exchange, which was kind of like an early almost NFT,
like it was a little too early. We were anticipating
the Jobs Act coming, but then the Jobs Act ended
up taking multiple years. So then when I was getting
(24:21):
ready to leave, New York, Rocket Exchange hadn't quite worked out.
But then so Jeff and I teamed up again and
we started this company, and we had some amazing partners
that came on board. Because when we first started, like, yeah,
we had our background, we had you know, we had
our Emmys, but we we didn't have like a slate
(24:41):
of projects or anything. It was really just very conceptual.
But you know, we had Stupid Buddy Studios came on
board with us. We had Neon. We had you know,
the founders of Neon, Tim League and Christian Parts and
advisors like that. We had Lisa tay Back from Netflix
or you know, later got bought by Netflix. We had
this incredible like group of people that understood what we
(25:04):
were trying to do and we're willing to like help
us accomplish it. And today we're you know, when we
look back at that, it's like it's funny because we think, like,
how did we even do that? Like we had nothing.
We were just like explaining what we wanted to do.
But we you know, we we we made it happen.
And today we're just you know, we feel like we've
(25:26):
got we have winded our sales. But at a time
where the industry is facing a lot of volatility, right
and so you know a lot of people would ask
us like, well, oh, but isn't the industry facing a
lot of you know, uncertainty, And I would say, you know,
we like you'd have to have your head in the
sands to not feel that that's the case. But we
(25:48):
feel like that that's where the opportunities are, you know,
fear is driving decision making in Hollywood right now. You know,
studios are cutting back, streamers have become more powerful than ever.
Risk take is at an all time low. But that's
exactly why legion M is so important. Like that's where
you know, if if the c's were calm and everything
(26:09):
was like normal and everything was thriving, it would probably
be a lot harder for legion M to even you know,
kind of get noticed. And so we're we're motivated by
you know, where we are. I mean, we watched the
industry you know had uh, but but we're we have
a very like optimistic you know, forecast for you know,
(26:31):
the people's appetite for content is not going to do
And you know, one of the things that we always say,
you know, and I think it's important with legion M's
model is, no matter what happens with the industry, how
we consume content, whether it's you know, streaming or in
a theater or you know, wherever those trends end up,
(26:51):
the one thing that will never stop mattering is the audience,
right because there is no industry without this audience. We're
the ones, you know, the audience we pay for everything.
You know, they are the fuel that drives everything, and
so you know, that's our focus is to like we
want to we want to have the best possible connection
(27:12):
to that audience. And you know, we feel like in
the future, you know that that audience can be the
you know, the the industry won't be determined by who
has the deepest pockets, It'll be determined by who has
the deepest relationship with the audience.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Your audience are your investors as well, though, and so
wondering about you know, separate from the industry, but just
looking at the country as a whole, macro economic concerns
the new administration. If you see chances of investors going
down because people choosing where they are going to put
their money and where they are going to spend their
money at this time.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
It's a really good question. I don't I think because
we are you know, the average investor puts like four
hundred dollars in you know, we're really not focused on like, oh,
you know, we're a core part of your diversified portfolio
and you need to move from Legionham into bonds or
something like that. I mean, we're really like disposable gambling.
(28:13):
You know, it's like that that's literally how we think
about it. Like, and the people that are investing, you know,
are investing because they believe in what we're doing and
they want to be a part of it, and that
owning shares. And we have a lot of people that
invest in every round. They might only put you know,
one hundred dollars or maybe a few hundred dollars in
(28:34):
every round, but they're in for every round. So we
know when we open up a new round, they're going
to be in. You know, they want to buy in
every every round. And you know, the company, I think
we continued to I mean, look, it's a it's a
pretty big audience of people in a community, and so
we it's hard to like make everybody happy. But we're like,
(28:57):
I feel like we're doing a good job there, like
because we really do have a diverse portfolio. Like we
tell people like, look, you're not gonna love every project
we do, Like maybe you will. I mean that there'll
be some people that that do. But you know, some
people want more horror, some people want more drama. You know,
whatever we're going to have, we're going to do all
of it. And you know, one of our our most
(29:20):
exciting projects, like the project that is it's hard to
say most exciting because we love all of our children,
but we have a project that we've been working on
for a couple of years and and it's full kind
of blossomed, you know, incarnation. It will be the perfect
(29:41):
prototype for what legen m represents because it's a it's
a project. It's called Definan. It's the story of Robert
Small's I don't know if you've ever heard of this
story or if we've spoken about it in the past.
I can follow up and send you some information about it,
but this is a this is a story that came
to us from our community. Like I had never heard
(30:02):
of Robert Smalls. Most people have never heard of Robert Smalls.
I mean that's Robert Smalls was an enslaved man working
on a Confederate warship during the Civil War. When I
start to describe this, maybe you've heard about it. But
so one night and what's got to be the most
audacious heist in the history of the world. He stole
the ship that he was working on, filled it with
(30:25):
other enslaved family members and their friends or in their family,
and sailed it to freedom. In this just unbelievable Ocean's
eleven style heist. But the story doesn't stop there. So
when he sells it to Freedom, it's very you know, tenuous,
high stakes, you know, heist. He gets it to, surrenders
(30:47):
it to the North, has to sail past you know,
Fort Sumter and the darkened night and do the codes
and everything. It's just an unbelievable story. So then they
surrender it to the North. They had lined the ship
with dynamite because they if they were going to be
taken down, they were just gonna they didn't want to
be be caught because that would have been the worst
(31:09):
possible situation. But so after they surrender it Lincoln, he
mates with Lincoln. Lincoln puts him on an evangelizing tour
where he's you know, building support for the for the
war and helping to get black Americans to fight on
behalf of the North, which is ultimately what turned the tide.
Lincoln made him a captain the same ship that he
(31:31):
stole they re you know, patrioted as a Northern ship.
Made him a captain. He sailed in like fourteen naval battles,
became the first. After the war is over, he moves
back South. He's from Charleston. This is where the Heighstriok place.
He becomes one of the first black congressmen, starts the
first compulsory public schools, buys his former slave master's plantation.
(31:54):
I mean, this guy is a legend, an absolute legend,
and you know, it's a true story, and it's been
out there and no one's made this movie yet. And
so our community said, hey, you know, there's this incredible,
you know, story out there. Why won't Hollywood or why
won't the industry, you know, tell this story? And you know,
we're always really pragmatic when we take on a project,
(32:16):
and this was a few years ago, and we said, well, look,
this sounds amazing, like what an incredible story. But just
to set expectations, you know, we can't just like wave
our fingers and make a movie like. There's a lot
that goes into it. There could be other projects in
the works. And fast forward to today, we are publishing
a graphic novel about like and we have schools and
(32:40):
libraries ordering them already. It's going to be an award
winning book. I can we can share with you what
it looks like, but it tells the full and complete story.
We have Rob Edwards, the screenwriter of the New Captain
America movie and screenwriter of Fresh Prince of bel Air
and I treasure plan it and it's just this unbelievable
(33:06):
like team that's come together. Now we have the Robert
Small's family involved in our project like we have there
and we and so we are it'll be historically accurate.
I mean, it's just this awesome project. And so it's
a graphic novel. It's also a movie that we're in
development on, and you know, it's it's just this exciting
project that our community, they're the ones that asked us
(33:29):
to do it, and now we're we're doing it great.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Well, thank you so much for your time today, Paul.
I so appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Yeah, thank you. Now, this has been lovely and I
appreciate you you having us on the show and including us.
It's been great.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Thanks for listening. Be sure to leave us a review
at Apple Podcasts or Amazon Music. We love to hear
from listeners. Please go to Variety dot com and sign
up for the free weekly Strictly Business newsletter, and don't
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