Insider #050
Legion M’s Jeff Annison & David Baxter joined William Shatner, Kevin Smith, filmmakers Alexandre O. Philippe & Kerry Deignan Roy in Comic-Con’s largest arena (Hall H) to show a sneak peek at a documentary “sketch” from the forthcoming Untitled William Shatner Documentary – one that will be owned by fans.
No doubt you’ve been inundated with information about Legion M’s benchmark time at San Diego Comic-Con two weeks ago. For those who have been following along, our small company had some amazing achievements in the few days we spent at SDCC, pop-culture’s largest convention. While we’re going to keep this wrap report brief, Legion M investor MeriJewel Burr-Goss wrote a kickass account of her time at SDCC. To read her account of Legion M’s time at con through the eyes of an investor, check out the blog here.
COMIC-CON WRAP REPORT
William Shatner Takes Over Comic-Con
We spent the day with our advisor William Shatner, and it was awesome. Bill flew down from LA in a helicopter and joined a room full of press and fans for the first of the day’s events: a handprint ceremony in his honor. MC Stephen Glickman, film critic Leonard Maltin, and Paul Wesley of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds were in attendance. From there, Bill participated in 2 autograph sessions, made a surprise appearance at Kevin Smith’s Hall H Masters of the Universe panel, held interviews with the press, retook the stage for Legion M’s own Hall H Panel, and then met with fans at his rooftop afterparty before taking the stage to perform his spoken-word track “I Want To Be A Tree.” Can you believe the man is 91?
Panels! Panels! Panels!
Legion M was granted an astounding FOUR PANELS at SDCC this year, including two in the largest rooms at Comic-Con: Hall H & Ballroom 20. Our Hall H panel, moderated by Kevin Smith, featured William Shatner and executives from Legion M and Exhibit A, and a sneak peak at the upcoming Untitled William Shatner Documentary. During the panel, Kevin Smith surprised the audience with a question: Could the fans in the audience be in the documentary? Director Alexandre O. Philippe agreed– and it happened! The documentary crew from Exhibit A was there to capture the thousands of cheering fans.
Our Ballroom 20 Panel, featuring the cast and creators of Nandor Fodor & The Talking Mongoose, included surprise messages from Simon Pegg, as well a sneak peek behind the scenes of the film AND a first look at a rough teaser.
Finally, we wrapped up con with two panels in Room 6DE. Our first panel, Legion M: How Fans Are Disrupting Hollywood By Equity Crowdfunding, showcased a host of exciting new content from a number of our current projects, including a sneak peek at a teaser for The Man In The White Van. The panel featured special guests like producer Richard Silverman (Legion of Comedy), Producer Marvin Jones (Defiant), screenwriter Rob Edwards (The Princess And The Frog), showrunner Aaron Waltke (Ghosts of Manhattan) and Producer/Director Boman Modine (Ghosts of Manhattan). We also announced some exciting new additions to two of our projects in development – info we’ll be able to share with the larger community soon.
Our final panel moderated by Gary Miereanu, Darknights and Daydreams: From Batman to Broadway featured The Boy Who Loved Batman himself, creator and originator of the Batman movie franchise, Michael Uslan, along with Nederlander Worldwide’s Don Frantz and Legion M’s David Baxter.
Legion M Pays Tribute to Stan Lee At Our First SDCC Booth
Legion M was asked to kickoff a months-long celebration of Stan Lee leading up to his 100th birthday in December. Each day of SDCC, Legion M dropped a new exclusive tee featuring Stan which was available for that day only. It was a great way to make our SDCC convention floor debut! Thanks to everyone who dropped by our booth, it was wonderful to speak to you in person.
DEVELOPMENT DIARIES
ISA’s Table Read My Screenplay — Remember the ISA's "Table Read My Screenplay" competition that Legion M partnered on? Well, it's finally time for Legion M’s community to participate! In addition to offering some cool Legion M prizes, ISA identified the top 16 projects that will compete in the Legion M Film Scout app. Soon, anyone with a Film Scout account can log in and rate the top projects based on their title and logline. The four scripts whose loglines rate highest in Film Scout will be read by the Legion M development team, and one will earn an hour-long meeting with the Legion M staff – so your vote really counts! Keep an eye out for the official launch around the third week of August.
Ghosts of Manhattan — If you haven’t had a chance to read any of the books in George Mann’s excellent Ghosts of Manhattan series, now is the time! We’ve re-upped our option on the project and are working hand-in-hand with our writing, animation and producing partners in redeveloping the IP as an animated feature film (we first pitched this as an animated television series). In addition to identifying some potential development fund resources, we’re also starting to attach voice talent with an eye on setting up the project for production within the next 18 months. We’re also discussing putting together a proof of concept sizzle for the animation and identifying the right partners and methodologies for this unique project.
Tales Of The Moonlight Cutter — We’ve been hard at work packaging this project and are happy to report that our Showrunner Jeff Yang has turned in an amazing treatment for the series. Our partners are currently reading the treatment and will deliver any notes they have in the next couple of weeks. We’re also starting to work on the animation assets for our pitch and we are generally super pleased with the series’ direction. We hope to go out with this project to buyers this fall.
NEWS FROM AROUND THE LEGION
Round 8 Investor Tees Are Here — If you invested in Round 8, you will have received an email with a code to claim your free t-shirt earlier this week. Feel free to reach out to orders@legionm.com if you have any questions or trouble redeeming your t-shirt.
Bad Samaritan on ElectricNOW App — Great news from Dean Devlin... One bad night. One Bad Decision. Can Haunt you forever. Watch the broadcast premiere of Bad Samaritan on Friday, Aug 5th on ElectricNOW! Click here to download the app.
Cash Is King Webinar with Mr. Wonderful — Catch Legion M President Jeff Annison on StartEngine’s recent webinar (along with Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary & StartEngine CEO Howard Marks) about the state of private capital markets today and what founders should do to prepare for volatility. Watch here.
INVESTOR SPOTLIGHT
This week we’re highlighting Legion M Investor Eric Schaefer!
Hometown: Huntington, NY
Why do you love Legion M? I love Legion M because the fans get a choice in the movies to develop instead of big money corporations who think they know what we want when they really don't.
What's your all time favorite movie or TV show? Back to the Future Trilogy / Supernatural and Scrubs
Favorite movie quote to live by? Scrubs "Anything in life worth having never comes easy!"
What is it about movies that inspires you? Movies allow we to experience things that don't happen in real life. It is a way to live differently through the characters we love.
What is your profession/bio? 6th Grade Science Teacher
Learn more about Eric at: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1107096
We want to put YOU in the spotlight. To submit to be featured in a future newsletter (and to view previous investor spotlights and comments) submit your info here.