PODCAST: Landing The GREEN DAY Movie “Nimrods”, Rescuing “Coyote Vs. Acme” & Building A Fan Owned Studio With Legion M

In this episode, I’m joined by Legion M co-founders Jeff Annison and Paul Scanlan to talk about the new Green Day comedy Nimrods, hitting theaters August 14, and how the world’s first fan-owned entertainment company ended up behind it and Coyote vs. Acme after three years on the shelf.

Jeff and Paul break down a model that doesn’t exist anywhere else in Hollywood. Over 60,000 people now co-own Legion M, with an average investment of $500 and a minimum of $100, and they’ve raised roughly $30 to $35 million across the studio, individual films, and their new film fund. As Jeff puts it, their entire existence has cost less than the first ten minutes of a Marvel movie. Along the way they financed the William Shatner documentary in four days with two emails, produced My Dead Friend Zoe with Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris, and co-released Fackham Hall with Bleecker Street.

We also get into the business realities most filmmakers never learn: why the group of people green-lighting projects narrows every year, and why your movie ultimately boils down to its trailer, title, and key art. Paul walks through the New Year’s Rev to Nimrods title change, and tells the story of pitching Green Day on a Comic-Con panel only to be told that punk rock bands don’t do panels, which is how Billie Joe Armstrong ended up performing from the roof of an ice cream truck while the band threw ice cream at the crowd.

Topics covered include:

• How a fan-owned studio works, and why it has advantages
• Getting to 60,000 investors one at a time, and the goal of reaching one million
• The three ways to invest: the studio, individual films, and the film fund
• How Legion M polls its community to decide which projects to pursue
• The community response that pushed them toward Coyote vs. Acme
• Jeff’s contrarian take on David Zaslav and the shelving decision
• Why they went after Nimrods and Obsession out of TIFF, and what happened
• The title change and the marketing balancing act around a Green Day audience
• The Comic-Con activation with Billie Joe Armstrong and the ice cream truck
• Why distribution should be the first thing a filmmaker thinks about, not the last
• Jeff and Paul’s definitions of a great director

This is Episode 281: Landing The GREEN DAY Movie “Nimrods”, Rescuing “Coyote Vs. Acme” & Building A Fan Owned Studio With Legion M

Links from the show:

Legion M – Website

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