Loading summary
Transcript77 lines
- [00:00]
A
One other thing that we can do specifically at Republic is also allow fans who have shares in these films to trade those shares out on a secondary market. If you have a share in this development slate and you start to see those announcements roll in that this movie has been greenlit and all that, and then maybe your share in that development slate goes up and you're able to send your kid to college.
- [00:34]
B
Welcome back to the Media Odyssey Podcast. That is Marion Renchett.
- [00:37]
C
And that is Evan Chaparro.
- [00:39]
B
It's good to see you. I'm back in my office. The renovations are almost done on my end. It's good to see you in sunny Amsterdam.
- [00:46]
C
Spring is in full swing. I want to do this and then go have some drinks. It's Friday afternoon, right?
- [00:52]
B
Me too. Well, it's morning here, but I still want drinks. We've had a really good season and all season long we've talked about elements of what I call the affinity economy. Ways that we're transforming traditional media and the creator economy together alongside each other that are new ways of doing business, new ways of creating opportunity, new ways of reaching new audiences. And I think today's guest personifies that. What do you think?
- [01:17]
C
Yeah, absolutely. So did not know Mark, but I have to say I'm going to put him in that category of people we've had over the past few years that I call agents of change. And so people who are trying to change how we do business, whether that's financing, producing, distributing content. So I'm excited to have him on.
- [01:37]
B
Yeah. And this business that Mark Israelis runs is called Republic Film. Mark, you want to come on and join us on the pod?
- [01:45]
A
Hello.
- [01:46]
B
There was this interesting movement where streamers were ordering independent sized films for a number of years. They created a demand for the market at all the festivals and they were scooping up films for 10 million, $20 million. And then they kind of retreated from that. And so the marketplace was left in a void for how to finance independent films, documentaries too, that weren't true crime. And so your record as an independent filmmaker showed you where the issues were. What brought you the idea of Republic film? Where did it originate from? And what problem is it looking to solve in particular?
- [02:27]
A
So I, I've been working with high net worth individuals, typical sort of executive producing financiers for, for over 10 years and have, you know, globally put them into films like an ep, films like Hotel Mumbai, the Dev Patel, Dolly Land with Ben Kingsley, Mary Haron, most recently the Testament of Ann Lee. And there's definitely a place for that, but it felt increasing like the only two ways to make a film are folks like those, you know, high net worth individuals, the folks on the yachts at Cannes, those kind. You have to have that level of access and of course just sort of relying on the big studio or streamer pickup where often now they take away your backend or they buy you out of development stage and we'll put you on the shelf, et cetera, all that. So I was looking for this third way of financing which I was really getting inspired by. When I was in Miami during COVID I found myself there. I ended up moving back to the east coast and I just saw that that was like kind of an influx in the whole world. It became like the Soho House of the entire world. Everybody was sort of moving there was and experimenting for a while, mostly in the tech sphere. We had a lot of crypto there as well. And, and despite what went right and wrong with that, a lot wrong of course. Like you know, that idea of a decentralized sort of movement and way of financing came about and I was trying to think how we could apply that to film. I mean in the crypto world at the time, a lot of people were putting out these NFTs and saying let's chop a film up into 100 NFTs and that NFT would be your revenue share in that film. Great concept. But in case you're, in case you're unfamiliar, America has some of the strictest securities laws in the world where unaccredited investors, people with a net worth under $1 million can, cannot be issued. These securities cannot invest into private market opportunities. That includes venture investing and things like film actually. So you know, even Ashton Kutcher, you saw that, he tried something with stoner cats and NFT and stuff but it just, it got shut down by the sec. So it is kind of a crazy thought that you know, in America, non millionaires, everyday folks cannot invest into private venture. I mean it's quite wild that let's say you were a intern in Silicon Valley and in, and you'd heard in HR and you'd heard about LinkedIn and you just, you wouldn't have been able to invest into that, you know, upstart, upstart company. In 2016, the Obama Jobs act started to finally give exemptions to that, to this hundred year old rule of not allowing unaccredited investors to invest into private market opportunities. And that, that was the jobs act and would create examples.
- [05:05]
B
So we talked about that a little bit with angel studios who did A REGE offering. They raised like $50 million from 18000 people or something like that. 40000 people actually. How is this so. So this is within that same exemption in the JOBS act but a little bit differently. And what did you do with this opportunity?
- [05:29]
A
So Republic was, was instrumental in. In building that JOBS act and is till today the the company that has the most number of licenses globally. So Angel Studios primarily uses the REG CF and mostly for domestic investors. They do not accept to my knowledge international investors for a lot of their raises and primarily now they focus on you know, PNA late stage raises as well. Just sort of it's a great marketing engagement tool and of course they have a very specific audience and thematic film type. Whereas Republic is, is really kind of the leading ven. Democratizing venture investing platform. We were born out of Angellist in the early 2000s. A unicorn that's all about democratizing ventures investing but that was only for accredited investor. And then Republic spun out to cater to the unaccredited investor on the back of the JOBS act as well. So till the today now Republic has a membership of 3 million users and has deployed or you know, those users. We've have invested over $2.6 billion into tech startup, real estate, gaming venture, all types of. All types of industries. And when I saw the breadth of these licenses, we have the licenses in the uk, in Europe, in the Middle east. We can take in global investment. We have all the different types of broker dealer. The we can do a REG CF through the funding portal which allows companies to raise up to $5 million from everyday unaccredited investors. The reg a plus which allows you to raise up to $75 million and era ira we, we can, we have the broker dealer. So just based on how Republic was catering to the largest retail audience, the largest breadth of licenses, I said wow, we have to start Republic Film so we can find a third path of capital for film and entertainment other than just the two outlined earlier.
- [07:33]
C
And how does that differ from. I'm going to use the word crowdfunding because that's, that's the limit I would say of. That's what I know about funding. That is not to your point, coming from accredited investors. What's the difference? What do you do differently? What don't you consider yourself, you know, a crowdfunding platform?
- [07:56]
A
So crowdfunding is, is, is essentially donations, you know, and there's a place for that with maybe certain types of communities, smaller raises, Kickstarter Seed and Spark, all great platforms of course you know, has. Has had a. Has had a certain perception in the entertainment industry, crowdfunding, of sort of like, you know, we. We need this money. Whereas I think crowd investing is a different opportunity. It's more about cutting the audience in. It's sharing the back end with them. And it really does transform the paradigm. It's almost as if, like, you know, this. And often in our cases, with our premium raises, this movie is happening, this company is happening, and we're cutting the audience in.
- [08:40]
B
We're.
- [08:40]
A
We're. We want to share an allocation with the audience. We're giving a seat in the equity table to the fans to get in as well. And that transforms, you know, that's. That transforms the pitch, but it also helps the movie do better when the audience is sort of a stakeholder as well and incentivized with the success of that film.
- [08:59]
B
So it's a. It's, to a certain extent, it's an even more professionalized form of fandom there because it is somewhat protected as a. As an offering. It is a security. Right?
- [09:09]
A
It's a security. It's. It's. Exactly. And it has to go through, you know, a licensed funding portal like ours where we really do the due diligence. And, you know, I like to think of it this way. You know, there's artist equity out there, which is rewarding, you know, the talent on the back end and making sure they're cut into the upside of the film. And we're audience equity. And I really think that this concept of audience equity, you know, really, really can be so impactful to a film's success. It, you know, even if you look at some of the amazing examples today, markiplier in January, like, how much better could that film have done? Even, Even more. Even better had audience been also stakeholders in the film and told all their friends and family to go see it. And not to mention the more you can independently finance a film from. From the start.
- [09:58]
B
Well, importantly, in. In that case, he, you know, he took a risk, a $3 million risk. He could have mitigated that risk with fan involvement. And then on the other hand, his fans could be rewarded with equity in the project itself, not just tickets to the movie. But crucially, you mentioned something there.
- [10:16]
A
The.
- [10:16]
B
The licenses and all of the professionalization and the legal requirements and all that. Mishigas Republic is the platform that takes care of that. That's an add water and stir for. For a candidate that gets in and many apply and many get in. You're taking care of all that. They don't have to think about any of that. And then these, these shares are issued out there. Can you give some examples of offerings that have gone out and gone well, of course, yeah.
- [10:46]
A
The Republic is that platform to legally allow a company or a film to accept investments from everyday unaccredited folks, people net worth less than a million dollars. They can come in for those exact same deals that a yacht person would have at a hundred dollars or up to, or, or a million dollars. We, you know, it's sort of, it's giving them that opportunity as well. And Republic sits as one entity on the cap table or in the equity pool. So you deal with us and we sort of, we, we pay out all the investors, we handle the taxes, the kyc, those are the licenses that we have to allow that next level of fan investing.
- [11:25]
B
There's no way that most filmmakers or producers even have the capabilities of doing this themselves. You could ultimately go through that if you wanted to, but it's not at a scale that's necessary.
- [11:37]
A
Well, no, it's hard. I mean, you would have to have a funding portal, you would have to have a reg. CF license. And I mean, those are hard ish to get. But what's really hard is really dotting all the I's and crossing all the T's and how you market a securities offering to an everyday person person. And that's where Republic really comes in as a platform of, of lawyers and engineers essentially to make sure that everything is being done, of compliance, to make sure everything is being marketed and sold and structured compliantly, not to mention paid out on the back end. So another place where Republic differs is that we actually use blockchain technology under the hood to pay out people efficiently without, without having to use, you know, expensive bank fees and things like that. So we, when I say blockchain, I don't Mean crypto or NFTs or fart coins or anything like that.
- [12:22]
B
Computing platform, basically.
- [12:24]
A
Yeah, it's a d. It's, it's a decentralized computing technology so that you can pay out thousands of people in real time every time you see your film in the theaters. And then it goes to streaming and then it goes into a Burger King toy, all that stuff. You can get a revenue share instantly without having to rely on multiple expensive bank transfers. So that is sort of where the future of that technology is going. It's sort of democratizing investment opportunities. I mean, look at just what's happening in the environment today with people hearing about the SpaceX IPO. A lot of People wanted in on that. It's a private market offering still of course, you know, that's still only accessible by the folks close to it in Silicon Valley. So you, and look at how people are, you know, in, in Poly Market and Kalshi and betting on. That's short term betting. And of course you see the immense fandom from Markiplier or obviously even Taylor Swift is going direct to distribution. And I just really, you know, this is finally a chance to get the audience also invested in propelling that even further.
- [13:23]
C
You mentioned 3 million users of the platform. How do you bring those investors in? Are they coming because they want to invest, period, or are they being drawn by particular, you know, projects? And then we can kind of discuss, you know, you've mentioned a couple of, of case studies that you've done with filmmakers, with, with directors, etc.
- [13:48]
A
So Republic's community is primarily, you know, venture and tech having built, built up over the last 10 years. But really the force comes from the creator or the filmmaker telling their community finally, hey, let's, let's make a movie together. And I'm sharing the upside with you. So you know, we've had Pressman Film who the producers of American Psycho, Wall street, bad lieutenant, the Crow. They raised $2 million for development. Their narrative was let's make more movies like these in this age of sequels and reboots. And, and they, how many investors, how
- [14:22]
B
many investors did they get for that?
- [14:24]
A
They had almost 400. They had about 380 investors or so. And so you know, a great way to raise development funding for, from not four or 40 people, but 400. You know, they sent out a link to all their folks and they also had a very specific strategy. They knew that the tech community loved the memes of American Psycho and Wall street and, and all these kind of things. And, and they went on, on the right podcast. They, they were big in the, in even to that crypto space. But even the crypto space that had only been sold NFTs in the past, which were not real investments and silly pictures or whatever they were, this was finally a real investment to take part into a legendary film company. Robert Rodriguez.
- [15:04]
B
Wait, can I do the math there was that, is that, is that $5,000 per investment does that. Is that.
- [15:10]
A
We had, we had many different check sizes in that.
- [15:12]
B
I know, but that averages out. I mean 400 doesn't sound like that many. But when you break it down, it was a $2 million, $2.5 million raise.
- [15:20]
A
Yeah.
- [15:21]
B
In $5,000 increments on average. That's a, that's a really interesting way to think about how to raise money for a film development fundamental. What was the second one you were about to mention?
- [15:31]
A
Yeah, I'm in Robert Rodriguez's case, Robert, it made the first ever investable action slate. You know his, he went out to his fans and say hey, we know that these type of movies perform maybe that 10 million John Wick type of movie. All of Robert's movies have converted to fantastic franchises. Sin City, Spy Kids from Do you know the Mexican trilogy and Dust Till dawn. And said, you know what, I'm, I've, I'm, I'm the maverick of film. I, I, I, I broke Sundance when I made my, my, my Sundance winner for $3,000. And I, I, I've got my own studio in Texas. I, I'm gonna do things my own way and I'm gonna make this next set of films with my fans and I'm gonna share the upside with the fans rather than the suits in Hollywood. And, and I started, started a movement there and you know people who are die hard fans of his, they poured in. He went on, he was featured on Joe Rogan, on Tim Ferriss, on Lex Friedman. And after Joe Rogan he actually sold out the raise over a million dollars in just a few days. And, and now, and the cool thing was every investor got to pitch Robert a film as part of the slate. So that alone sort of broke, you know, broke the mold like people who never had that level of access. He got to develop, he's, he's, he's, there's been a pitch logline contest and now there's another one. He's developing a film with literally a fan. The investment minimum was $250. They had different perks all the way up to a million dollar investment. You know, awesome things like have dinner with Robert, tour the studio, be included in a film. But, but yeah, now he's developed an incredible community. If you go to republic.com rodriguez and if you scroll all the way down to the discussion board, even a year after the raise, they're still talking to each other, greeting each other, good morning, you know, sharing movie ideas. They've called themselves the brass knuckle warriors. So it's really created an incredible community that's going to turn out for all these films that come out.
- [17:29]
C
What I love is that it feels so there's a few things right. He's been in the business for a long time, he wants to do things a different way. But there's also the Topic of when you over rely on suits from Hollywood and you want to make, you know, a specific kind of movies and you know, very action led and action packed movies but maybe they've gone out of vogue or they need to be different than what he tends to do. When we spoke to angel, they were very focused on Rom com and there's not that many Rom com, good ones, you know, being, being made. So it's, it's a great way of kind of, you know, owning that pipeline and saying this is what I want to do, this is what people should want and you truly make that decision and you manage that project from end to end. I think that's fascinating. Fantastic.
- [18:24]
A
It's a way for actually fans to enable the filmmakers they love to have the ultimate independence and creative independence. No notes from others, no IP buyouts,
- [18:36]
B
no hat in hand. No hat in hand. Going out there looking for $100,000 here, $500 here, and then having to jump through hoops to get that. It's, it's a, it's, here's my idea. Embrace it, become a part of it and, and you can help secure its success too. The, the Eli Roth example is, is the biggest one so far, correct?
- [18:59]
A
Well, I mean actually the biggest one is Skybound, which is you know, a large studio that, that produces the Walking Dead and Invincible and you know, when
- [19:11]
B
they were an indie studio.
- [19:14]
A
An indie studio but a larger size with established IP that's been going for a while and for the first time is offering, you know, an allocation to retail investors into, into an established studio which was the first. It's like being, having an access to Blumhouse and they raised 18 million from over 5,000 investors. And you know, we're featured in investment magazines and portfolios and really just hit these mailing lists and, and was a fast, fantastic opportunity. Another, another again just to, just to double click that.
- [19:47]
B
That's $3,600 per investor. Do you know what I mean? Like just it, it, it still sounds like a lot of money and it still sounds like a kind of exclusive but it is truly democratized because you're, you're getting people who wouldn't normally be investing in the, these, in these things and they don't have to like break open their every piggy bank to get in for $3,000. For a thousand dollars you're, you can be a part of this. And yes, you may not have a huge return, but it just gets you into the cycle of being a part of making art happen. It's great.
- [20:18]
A
And there's different return profiles, actually. So with Skybound and Eli Roth, which we're about to get into, those are equity into companies. So you're, you know, you're waiting for. Right. Big sale or liquidity event. It might go public, might sell, you might have a dividend distribution. Whereas with the development slates or single picture deals, that's revenue sharing in real time. When the movie comes out, you'll get a payout. You know, when it goes to streaming, et cetera, you're going to get.
- [20:44]
B
Yeah, that's an important distinction. I didn't realize that the Skybound one was actually in the company itself and then Eli's is as well. In a company.
- [20:52]
A
Eli's as well. The narrative with Eli's was I'm making a new horror studio to make all those disgusting films that the big studios don't allow to make the most, you know, the most profitable film of 2024 was Terrifier 3 and unrated, you know, event style distribution and they want to make more of those. And Eli launched a new company called the Horror Section and, and allocated up to 10% of the company to his fans and said, you know, we're letting this is happening, we're doing this and we're letting you guys in and come in and own a piece of my IP with me. And that raised over $6 million from 2,500 fans. And you know, it was a great narrative. I saw Eli at the horror festivals or on different, you know, press circuits and just screening the sizzle, which you can still see on republic.com horror section and just watching these horror fans, often in costume, go nuts. It's a really, really exciting, cool opportunity. It's like, what if you could have owned a share in. In Blum. In. In the next Blumhouse or in the next Disney Pixar. You know, this. So this was also a new paradigm.
- [21:57]
C
What's fascinating is that with all the things you're mentioning, there's rev share, there's equity, but you've mentioned, you know, dinner and with, you know, Robert Rodriguez or I think you mentioned when we were doing the Pratt, some money to be killed in the movie.
- [22:11]
B
Yeah.
- [22:13]
C
What's fascinating is that I guess that depending on how much you put, if you're putting 40k, you know, it's not just to defend them, maybe you want to have some return on your investment. But you seem to be saying that, you know, there's that perk factor that is really driving people to invest. So, you know, little things outside the box. But Just because people feel that, you know, they, they have a bit of that IP and they contribute, you know, they're happy with just, you know, getting a perk here and there. Is that correct?
- [22:43]
A
Well, I think, I think it's, it's, it's kind of like, you know, you could argue that crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter have these perks as well. And that's kind of mostly with all they have perks and credits. We have all that's included here as well. You invest a certain amount, you'll, you can get an EP credit. Yeah. If you invest a million dollars into the horror section, Eli will kill you on screen. And of course, on the other end of the extreme, as I mentioned, Robert, every investor got to pitch a film. Even at the lowest level, you can have a lottery as well for attendance and things like that. So the perks thing is really fun. The passion element is obvious for film and culture and community, but really that, that, that investment incentive, the fact that you're an actual owner and the fact that you're tied and motivated for the success of the film is a differentiating factor. That's why we raise larger amounts. That's why we have more premium people, more premium type of offerings on the platform. We've sold out every film raise that we've ever done. Even we launched officially in late 2024. We've had about six or seven of these. We're loading up a dozen more. So I mean, we are very, we are very at this stage, you know, we have an eye on what will perform really well with a large built in audience. And you know, one more thing about sort of, it's the, the big paradigm shift again is you see a lot. You know, I'm listening to podcasts all the time and there was a period where I swear that every commercial break, Ryan Reynolds was trying to sell me a, a mint mobile or somebody else was trying to send me a. Sell me a tequila. I mean, when a celebrity launches a tequila, imagine how much, how much of a greater story it would be and how maybe better it would do if the audience also owned a piece of that brand with them. And they said, hey, I'm sharing this opportunity with you guys. And they're going to be just evangelists for that brand. I own a piece of tequila. I'm bringing this one to the party. You know, it's the same with a film. Sort of like I own a piece, I want to tell my friends and family to go see it.
- [24:31]
B
Well, and there's a, there's a couple of important things that I would add to that. First of all, you have 3 million members. Most of those people aren't film fans and community members. They're investment professionals. Right. Or they, they. They have a portfolio that they actively invest. They have to, they're. They're already on there because they're investing on the platform. And some of these offerings Skybound and Roth in particular attracted. Once they got a decent amount of momentum, they got more, you know, professional investors involved, which is actually not a bad thing because now there's more capital to be going to these folks. As a consequence, though, in both cases, I think one of the perks that is intangible and isn't present so much on a Patreon or in these other areas is the ability to help run the company. Not really, but pitching Robert stuff. Some of these. I think what you'll find is increasingly companies will have ongoing meetings where the investors are giving. It's behind the curtain. It's giving feedback. In the case of angel, they get to greenlight the films in particular. I think you'll start to see some of that there. Then I want to pivot to this question, which is what makes a successful offering on this platform? What's the unifying figure? And I think having a fan base is one of them. Let's assume that that exists. We know I've brought some folks to you. I'm so excited by this platform. I continually bring people that I think don't understand what the opportunity is here around their ip, around their history, their. There's an animation studio I've brought to you that I think is going to go incredibly well because they're a collection of fandoms that are going to make an offering on here. But if there were a lesson about somebody who has a history in entertainment and wants to explore this as a new way to protect themselves in the future for funding. What is the unifying factors that you see? What are the unifying factors that you see?
- [26:24]
A
And just to touch on one point earlier, there's a sensity around a sensitivity around creativity by committee. And I think that's a choice for the issue, how much they want to the project, the issue where they're issuing securities, how much they want to include their community, you know, pitching ideas or town halls, which. Which everyone has done actually. Ron Perlman did also a town hall. He raised a million dollars on the platform from over a thousand folks. And he's very passionate about having an artist first platform. You know, he was really active in the strikes um, and, and, and often also, but about the community on Republic versus the community that the artist or the, the project brings. You know, as a community of tech investors, you're gonna, you're, you're gonna rely on, on Robert telling his fans, Eli telling his fans to come in. And then when that traction starts to happen, the Republic community starts to see, wow, that's trending. What's all this buzz going on? And then they often come in and you know, yeah, so, so they might not be film first people, but they've suddenly been exposed to this opportunity they've never had in the entertainment sector. And you know, at the end of the day, everybody goes home and watches Netflix at the end of their workday and often complains about it. So there's some really, really appealing narratives here of let's, let's change what we get to see in the world and let's be active in that. To your point, Evan, and I think what makes a really successful raise is of course, I think it has to have, it has to have that narrative that I was just describing earlier. Ron Perlman, you know, wants to make a more artist first artist first type of platform and, and develop, you know, develop films, you know, again, making artists independent and creatively independent and free. And we were working with a huge animation studio already a more, more anime studio, I should say. And imagine giving those fans the opportunity to invest into the next IP that this huge animation anime studio does or investing in a sequel of one of their favorite IPs. Or, you know, what if it was the first? I'm going to try not to be too specific, but give sort of paradigms. The first, you know, LBGTQ owned film where the community can greenlight what they want to see in the world. The first could be, you know, there's a lot of, there's, you know, a lot of people trying to champion underrepresented films represented filmmakers. Like, let's have the community get to enable and greenlight these types of films and then share in that upside films for us, buy us, and we also win from that. So as you see, there's just all these, there's a lot of changes happening today in the entertainment industry. AI is sort of, you know, democratizing tools of production. YouTube has become the largest distributor, bigger than, bigger than Disney, if you consider that way creators and the creator economy and influencers, they're bigger than celebrities. What is a celebrity these days? It's often could be like a Brad Pitt in his 60s or maybe a Timothy Chalamet here And there. But these influencers and creators have millions of fans that they talk to every day, often sell to as well. And this is a chance to finally make something if they want to take that next step with them. And in the financing space we get to a place where, where we were have been so restricted historically because of these securities laws until now, where you know, we can, we can innovate, we can, we can accept unaccredited investors. One other thing that we can do specifically at Republic is also allow fans who have shares in these films to trade those shares out on a secondary market. So that's something that we uniquely have. That, that, that the other also even crowd investing platforms don't have is that opportunity. If you, if you have a share in this development slate and you start to see those announcements roll in that, that, that this movie has been greenlit and all that, and then maybe you're sharing that development slate goes up and you're able to send your kid to college by, by, by, by selling your stake in Robert's next awesome film.
- [30:17]
C
So by the time this episode drops, you'll be in Cannes, right? You're going to the film festival.
- [30:23]
A
Yes. Yeah.
- [30:25]
C
And so yeah, I'd be curious because I, I was there, I've been there a few, you know, super pregnant on the red carpet. But this is a very old school still market.
- [30:41]
A
Right.
- [30:42]
C
I feel they've tried to bring, you know, an innovation space. There's meet the streamers where they're trying to, you know, be a bit more encompassing in terms of, you know, what the ecosystem looks like. But I wonder how, you know, your conversations are going with people from that industry when, when you're pitching this, this, this, this model. Have you, have you done that already? What, what is, what is that reaction? What are you getting from people?
- [31:12]
A
I think, you know, these film markets are the best place to, to, to get on panels and to talk to journalists and to really educate the market that there's now this third way of, of financing a film. I mean financing is what these markets are all about. Whether it's pre sales or making deals or getting acquired and to educate sort of independent producers. These are all independent film festivals that you know, if you have that right narrative, if you have that community, keep, keep it independent. And you know, my, my thesis for, for how this affects the entire revenue sort of model and chain is the more you independently finance a film, the more control you have, you have your built in community that gives you more leverage when you talk to distributors because you have this army of incentivized stakeholders promoting your film. And when it comes out in the cinemas, you or where distribution, it does better because you have all these people telling their friends and family to go see it. You also can reduce your pna, not to mention do a PNA raise from your fans. I mean, we talked about Angel Studios earlier. Sound of Freedom raised $5 million just for PNA because they could, you know, nobody else wanted to sort of distribute their film and created an army of, of of, you know, audience members that. And they all got paid back their 20 within a few months, etc. So it's just new tools of getting movies out into the world and even the narrative. Like, you know, a few years ago at Sundance, the movie Beyond Utopia won the audience award, but couldn't get distribution. It was about the Christian community helping, you know, smuggling out North Koreans. Nobody wanted to touch that film. The community, the Christian community or certain human rights organizations, you know, could have funded the P and A of that in five minutes. And with the message this needs to be seen on the big screen. So there's ways of distribution as well that I talk about. And I think, I think at this time, with all the change happening in the market, I think this year the theme is going to be all about the creator economy. It just gets more and more relevant every year.
- [33:07]
C
So Mark, we, we talked about the business model, right. And how those investors get equity. Any examples, you know, of a project where, you know, people actually saw money coming their way?
- [33:22]
A
Yes. I mean, actually, you know, the first raise that we launched, you know, in late 2024, is within six months. Was already. Was ready to pay investors out already. And investors recently received a distribution for the Pressman film raise. So, you know, investors invested into a slate of awesome new Pressman ip. And, and we just recently paid out those investors from the sale of Bad Lieutenant Tokyo to Neon, which was part of that slate. So in that sense, you know, we made history by being the first investable slate to really pay out, you know, these hundreds of investors.
- [34:01]
B
That's amazing.
- [34:02]
A
And using the technology under the hood to ensure that that keeps coming as films sell or get distributed or have get net profits, producer fees, rights fees, etc.
- [34:12]
C
Cool. And so what else do you have cooking? We. We said you would be at Cannes. You've announced a couple of weeks back, massive project on sci fi.
- [34:21]
A
Yeah. So one of our partnerships that we are really that. That you'll see a lot more, you know, this summer is essentially the world's largest science fiction competition. So we're partnered with the X Prize, Google and Range Media partners to, to mount this, this X Prize is, it's started by Peter Diamandis who is a billionaire investor and also philanthropist. But also he's all about kind of longevity and science and space tech and he's launched these multi million dollar prizes for folks. Well now he's doing one in film to essentially inspire the next Star Trek. It's a positive vision of humanity rather than just robots and AI eating the world. He wants to create the next Star Trek to inspire the next generation of scientists.
- [35:09]
B
Sci fi used to predict good futures. Star Trek being a great example of that, but it's all now post apocalyptic. And this wants to return to the Gene Roddenberry vision of sci fi. Hopeful sci fi, right?
- [35:24]
A
That's right. And we've got the Roddenberry foundation involved. There's a $3.5 million cash prize already, you know, funded by, by, you know, A16Z and Balaji Srinivasan and Cathie Wood from Ark Ventures and all these great sort of tech folks. And what we're doing on the Republic side is also allowing fans to invest into that next Star Trek so all filmmakers or creators can pitch their 3 minute visions of the future on AI or whatever tools they want to use. That competition is open till the end of August and filmmakers pitch and fans can also invest in the next Star Trek. And that's sort of where we come in to co own that positive vision of the future. And so obviously with the creator, with the creator community, the sci Fi community, we're getting a lot of really fantastic submissions and you know, the prizes will be revealed and, and, and that page will be up soon as well. And we're doing panels with creators and all those types of folks. So go check it out@futurevisionxprize.com Cool.
- [36:23]
C
And you'll have to keep us posted when, when the prize is awarded, we'll, we'll cover it on the pod. Again, exciting to see how this, this comes to life.
- [36:33]
B
We talk all the time about producers and independent studios and creators protecting themselves, not waiting around to be greenlit. This platform to me is a perfect case study in thinking of new ways to greenlight yourself. This is an opportunity for both the fans and the artists to collaborate and I think it sits at the center of everything we've been discussing all year. Mark, thank you so much for being on the podcast with us. This is an incredible case study. You'll be around at conferences, so at Cannes Film Festival, maybe at Stream TV in Denver. This summer. But certainly if you see Mark at any event, go up to him and talk to him. He's one of the most interesting, thoughtful people you're going to meet in our industry. Thanks, Mark, so much.
- [37:22]
A
Thank you so much. Evan and Maren, really a privilege to be on your show.
- [37:26]
B
Maren, that was incredible.
- [37:28]
C
Yeah, I want to look up the platform and see where I could invest. What he said about underserved topics and communities, I feel strongly about that.
- [37:41]
B
The case study that I talked about with Mark when he was on is this animation studio that it's a collection of creators and they were contemplating going out and raising money from the kind of traditional sources. And, you know people. I know people. That process is fucking. It's awful and it's endless. And everyone tells you a different story. Here's an opportunity to use the fandoms that this company actually has access to to raise the money and greenlight their own business themselves. They want to build an app. They can go directly to the community and make the case to them. We hear so often at these conferences, producers and studios who complain about we can't get a green light or we can't get investment or whatever it is. If you have a fan base, here's an. We're talking about four or five hundred people raising $2 million. Where, where else can you do that? So this is one good example of that. There are many others, but this gives me great hope about where this, this, the future of our industry can go.
- [38:41]
C
I think we need, so. We need someone. So with. That's what we're trying to do, you know, give that visibility to companies who are doing, you know, things in a different way. But I would say that, you know, a lot of people within our ecosystem could use to get that, you know, education information somehow and should not necessarily come from us. But, you know, the French market, for example, we, we. We have a role to play. But I'm thinking about in France, for example, the cnc, which is, you know, it is at the core of, you know, how French cinema is financed by. Yeah, you know, why. Why aren't they talking about all of those new words?
- [39:24]
B
I mean, let's be fair. We're talking to IBC about this. We're talking about MIPCOM to this. We have to be pushing this conversation at these conferences. It's why I wanted to have Mark on this podcast now. He's going to get all these calls to come to these conferences. But I think we, as a community, when we convene, we have to include these voices more front and center and we will at Stream TV this summer we're going to have a whole conversation around the new model. I'm hoping Mark can join that panel. He has a lot of travel. But Sam Pressman who did work Pressman films with Republic Film to do a raise is going to be on a panel around the new model this summer. Which reminds me, if you use the code Media Universe10 right now, you can get 10% off a pass to stream TV in Denver this summer where we're going to be talking about this and a whole bunch of other ideas about how to move our business forward. Marian, it was great to see you. I'm glad you're worked up. I'm glad you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. I knew you were going to love Mark and this idea. This has been the Media Odyssey podcast. That is Marian Rinshet and that is Evan Chaparro.
- [40:35]
C
We'll see you next time.
- [40:37]
A
Sam.