Podcast Summary: Making It with Jon Davids

Episode 227 – “This Is How We Make Money Selling Movies”
Guest: Jordan Harmon, President & Co-founder of Angel Studios
Release Date: November 7, 2025

Overview

This episode features Jon Davids in conversation with Jordan Harmon, President and Co-founder of Angel Studios. They dive deep into Angel Studios’ unique business model for movie and TV show production, distribution, and funding, highlighting the studio's rapid path from startup to a company generating over $200M in annual revenue. The conversation unpacks how Angel Studios empowers creators, leverages crowdsourced decision-making via the "Angel Guild," and employs disciplined direct-to-consumer marketing—upending traditional Hollywood economics.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Angel Studios’ Revenue Model and Financial Transparency

• Waterfall Structure: Angel Studios uses a straightforward revenue split to maintain transparency and align incentives.
  • Marketing Expenses: 25% of the projected revenues (box office or show revenues) goes directly into marketing.
  • Distribution Expenses: After marketing, other costs like credit card fees and distribution get deducted.
  • Profits Split:
    • For theatrical releases: Two-thirds of remaining profits go to producers and investors; one-third goes to Angel Studios for distribution and overhead (00:34–02:45).
    • For the Guild revenue stream: Profits are split 50/50 between Angel Studios and producers due to higher engineering overhead.
• Incentivizing Efficiency: Angel Studios’ share of revenue covers their general overhead, putting “skin in the game” and driving efficient spending.
• Direct Relationships: The studio maintains direct licensing relationships with platforms like Amazon, Netflix, and Peacock for extracting value across traditional release “windows,” in addition to their unique revenue channels.

Notable Quote

“We don't cover our general overhead off the top. And so it creates this beautiful incentive for us to be super efficient.”
— Jordan Harmon, (01:55)

2. Creative Financing and Budgeting

• Angel Studios’ film funding blends private equity, a dedicated film fund ("Angel Acceleration Group"), and creative investor structures.
• The model shifts producer incentives: profits, not production budgets, are the focus, which disincentivizes budget inflation and encourages cost discipline (04:14–05:15).
• Jordan shares that producers often adjust their budgets downward (sometimes dramatically) once they understand how they are rewarded.

Notable Quote

“Don't pad your pockets with production budgets. Pad them with profits… Hollywood doesn’t have a revenue problem. They have a spending problem.”
— Jordan Harmon, (04:21)

3. The Angel Guild: Crowdsourcing Content Decisions

• Origins & Concept: Inspired by “Wisdom of Crowds,” the Angel Guild leverages collective audience feedback to greenlight projects.
• How It Works:
  • Anyone can join at angel.com/guild.
  • Members preview projects (proof-of-concept ‘torches’) and vote on their merit.
  • Guild input is used both at the project pitch stage and at the post-production test screening stage.
• Impact:
  • Drastically higher average audience scores (94% on Rotten Tomatoes compared to Paramount’s 84%) thanks to data-driven validation (06:29–09:00).
  • The Guild gets practical perks like free tickets and discounts; most importantly, it actively shapes the company’s greenlight decisions, replacing executive gatekeeping with audience curation.

Notable Quote

“The only person you're responsible to is the Angel Guild. If you win them over, Angel will support you.”
— Jordan Harmon, (09:25)

“We have the highest audience score average on our titles by a wide margin … because we’re not guessing. We know what the audience wants.”
— Jordan Harmon, (08:08)

4. Creator and Producer Empowerment

• No Creative Control from the Studio: Angel Studios prides itself on not taking creative control from producers. The Guild is the deciding body.
• Iterative Collaboration: Producers iterate and improve based on Guild feedback, sometimes going through many rounds of edits, resulting in higher audience satisfaction.

Anecdote

Jordan recounts a director whose film failed to pass Guild approval on the first cut, needing over a dozen edits until the Guild was satisfied—resulting in an eventual hit.
— (09:25–10:18)

5. Marketing Strategies: Direct-to-Consumer Discipline

• Drawing on direct-response and D2C marketing background (from previous ventures like Cove Security and Harmon Brothers), Angel Studios applies:
  • Data-driven digital marketing,
  • Rigorous A/B testing,
  • Avoidance of wasteful spend typical of Hollywood campaigns (like expensive billboards with no ROI tracking).
• The approach prioritizes efficient spend and measurable outcomes over splashy but unaccountable traditional campaigns (10:29–11:39).

Notable Quote

“It’s not crazy complicated. It’s just discipline, hard work and trial and error through significant AB testing. But the traditional studios don’t operate that way.”
— Jordan Harmon, (10:42)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Angel Studios’ Growth:

  “People are like, you're like an overnight success. It's like yeah, 11 year overnight success. So it's, it's been fun.”
  — Jordan Harmon, (03:52)

• On Producer Incentives:

  “I've had people in the exact same meeting go, you know what? I think I could shoot this for $11 million. And I'm like, wow ... That's the beauty of incentive alignment.”
  — Jordan Harmon, (04:54)

• On Crowds vs. Experts:

  “If you phone a friend or an expert [on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire], they were right 61% of the time. If you ask the audience, they were right 91% of the time.”
  — Jordan Harmon, (06:53)

• On D2C Marketing Mindset:

  “When you come from that world of rigorous marketing where every dollar has to make a dollar or a buck fifty, it's a whole different psychology from ‘let's put up billboards and see if people show up at the movies.’”
  — Interviewer (Jon Davids), (11:21)

Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|-----------------------------------------------------| | 00:10 | Angel Studios revenue breakdown and splits | | 04:14 | Discussing project financing and cost discipline | | 06:29 | The Angel Guild concept and impact | | 09:25 | How the Guild input shapes creative feedback | | 10:29 | Angel Studios’ marketing strategies vs. Hollywood |

Conclusion

This episode offers a rare behind-the-scenes look into how Angel Studios has disrupted traditional film financing and distribution by combining incentive-based cost control, audience-powered decision-making, and modern digital marketing with a transparent, creator-friendly deal structure. Jordan Harmon’s candor and clarity reveal the company’s mission to build not just profitable content but a new model for Hollywood’s future. Whether you're a creator, investor, or movie lover, this conversation is packed with actionable lessons and fresh perspectives.