Project Update: Setback for our Streaming Series

Legion M has been on a winning streak lately, but today I’m afraid we’ve got some disappointing news to report.

First, a story...

One of the earliest investors in MobiTV (the first startup Paul, myself, and Phillip Alvelda founded in 1999) was a highly distinguished individual named Bobby Ray Inman. Prior to becoming a venture capitalist, Bob was a 4 Star Admiral in the US Navy. He also served as Director of the NSA and Deputy Director of the CIA.

As a career military man, Admiral Inman was an imposing figure who commanded respect. And as one of our nation's top intelligence officials, he was extraordinarily smart. We're friendly with Bob now, but to be honest we were all a little afraid of him back then.

Bob taught us many things, and has had a huge influence on the entrepreneurs Paul and I are today. I recall during one of our first board meetings when he told us:

"Both good things and bad things are going to happen to this company - it's inevitable. You need to tell me both. I never get upset about bad things, but I get mad as hell when people don’t tell me about them."

This statement summarizes the way Paul and I feel about sharing news with our community. As managers of the company, we work for you. Part of that means sharing the news -- good, bad, and ugly. And while most of the time we post updates to celebrate the good news, today we need to share some of the ugly.

Now, the news:

In August of 2021 Legion M signed a deal with a major streaming company for the sale of our first TV series. Due to confidentiality agreements we have not been able to reveal the the name of the series or the partner, but we've promoted it with statements like the following from our StartEngine profile:

This project has been a big deal for Legion M. The long-form legal agreement took over 8 months to negotiate. The series was expected to contribute hundreds of thousands of dollars to Legion M over the coming years, with an opportunity to grow over time. Most importantly, this deal represented a significant inflection point, as Legion M graduated from the immeasurable ranks of producers attempting to package and sell a TV series in Hollywood to the much more exclusive community of producers who have successfully packaged and sold a TV series in Hollywood.

Since the deal was signed last August, the streamer has been working in earnest on the series. They staffed a writers’ room and completed two full seasons of episode outlines (our deal was for 2 seasons of the series). After the first season’s outlines were approved by the streamer, the writers completed the first full season of scripts. Everything seemed to be moving towards production starting later this year, with an expected release in 2023.

Until a few weeks ago when our streaming partner informed us that, in the course of making some difficult business decisions, they had to cut the project from their slate. Ugh.

They told us their decision was not due to any creative issues with the show, but because of a new mandate that changed the streamer’s overall content strategy. These sorts of situations are all too common in Hollywood. If you follow the news, there's no shortage of “strategic changes” and show cancellations (animated and otherwise) reported in recent months. While it's extremely frustrating for those that have invested months or years of their lives into these projects, this is simply part of doing business in Hollywood. Our show isn't the first to get shelved due to a change in company strategy, and it certainly won't be the last.

What does this mean for Legion M?

While this is a disappointing setback for Legion M, we don't expect the impact to be too severe in the overall scheme of things. This is just one project -- we have dozens of others on our slate. The expected revenue would have been nice, but only represents a small portion of our overall run rate. As a company focused primarily on the long-term growth of our community and building competitive advantages, this feels more like a missed opportunity than a blow to our core business. And as we mentioned, these setbacks are all too common in Hollywood -- to be successful we must build a company capable of withstanding them.

It’s also worth noting that while this particular deal with this particular streamer is dead, there is still reason to be hopeful about the project. Our creative and producing teams continue to be excited and committed to pushing the project forward. Our former streaming partner has indicated a willingness to negotiate a "turnaround agreement" that would allow us to take back the project (including the outlines and scripts) so we can try to sell it elsewhere. Since this series was not previously shopped (it was part of a “first look” deal that allowed our former streaming partner to lock it up before anyone else had a chance to see it), we believe there are other potential buyers in the marketplace.

No matter what happens from here, we feel like this project has already been instrumental in allowing Legion M to "level up" within the industry. We have a large number of new projects in development that we're hoping to sell. The milestone we reached with this deal – closing a deal for a series with a top streamer – still stands. We’ve proven that we can package and sell IP.

Bad luck may have scuttled this deal, but that will always be a risk outside our control. If we can continue executing on the things within our control, we’re confident our breaks will come.

Onward and Upward!