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THE FAN-FUNDED FILM REVOLUTION · The Media Odyssey

• Marc Iserlis: [00:00:00] 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's been green lit and all that, and then maybe your share in that development slate goes up and you're able to send your kid to college. Evan Shapiro: Welcome back to the Media Odyssey podcast. That is Marion Ranchet. Marion Ranchet: And that is Evan Shapiro. Evan Shapiro: 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. Marion Ranchet: Spring is in full swing. I wanna do this and then go have some drinks. It's Friday afternoon, right? Evan Shapiro: 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. [00:01:00] 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? Marion Ranchet: Yeah, absolutely. So did not know Marc, but I have to say I'm gonna put him in that category of people we've had over the past few year 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. Evan Shapiro: Yeah. And, this business that Marc Iserlis runs is called Republic Film. Mark, you wanna come on and join us on the pod? Marc Iserlis: Hello. Evan Shapiro; 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 [00:02:00] they 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? Marc Iserlis: So I've been working with high net worth individuals, typical sort of executive producing financiers for over 10 years, and have globally put them into films like, and EP'd films, like Hotel Mumbai with Dev Patel, Dollyland with Ben Kingsley, Mary Heron, most recently The Testament of Ann Lee. And there's definitely a place for that. But it felt increasingly like the only two ways to make a film are folks like those, high net worth individuals, the folks on the yachts at Cannes, those kind of people. You have to have that level of access. And, [00:03:00] of course, just relying on the big studio or streamer pickup, where often now they take away your back end or they buy you at a development stage and will 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 was like an influx in the whole world. It became like the Soho House of the entire world. Everybody was moving there and experimenting for a while, mostly in the tech sphere. You had a lot of crypto there as well. And, despite what went right and wrong with that, a lot wrong, of course, 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. 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 [00:04:00] unfamiliar, America has some of the strictest securities laws in the world, where unaccredited investors, people with a net worth under a million dollars, cannot be issued these securities, cannot invest into private market opportunities. That includes venture investing, and things like film, actually. 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 a crazy thought that, in America, non-millionaires, everyday folks cannot invest into private venture. 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 upstart, upstart company. In 2016, the Obama Jobs Act started to finally give exemptions to that, to this 100-year-old rule of not allowing unaccredited investors to invest into private market opportunities [00:05:00] and that, that was the Jobs Act, and it, it would create exemptions. Evan Shapiro: We talked about, so we talked about that a little bit with Angel Studios who do, did a Reg A offering. They raised like $50 million from 18,000 people or something like that. 40,000 people, actually. How is this, so this is within that same exemption in the Jobs Act, but a little bit differently, and what did you do with this opportunity? Marc Iserlis: So Republic was instrumental in building that Jobs Act and is still today 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 [00:06:00] PNA late stage raises as well. It's a great marketing engagement tool. And of course, they have a very specific audience and thematic film type. Whereas Republic is really the leading democratizing venture investing platform. We were born out of Angel List 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 today now, Republic has a membership of 3 million users and has deployed or those users have invested over $2.6 billion into tech, startup, real estate, gaming, venture, 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. We can [00:07:00] do a Reg CF through the funding portal, which allows companies to raise up to $5 million from everyday unaccredited investors, the Reg A+, which allows you to raise up to $75 million. And ERA, IRA, 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 that we can find this third path of capital for film and entertainment other than just the two outlined earlier. Marion Ranchet: And how does that differ from, I'm going to use the word crowdfunding because 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? Why don't you consider yourself a crowdfunding platform? Marc Iserlis: So crowdfunding is essentially donations, [00:08:00] and there's a place for that with maybe certain types of communities, smaller raises, Kickstarter, Seed&Spark, all great platforms. Of course, has had a certain perception in the entertainment industry, crowdfunding of 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 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. We're, we wanna 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, that transforms the pitch, but it also helps the movie do better when the audience is a stakeholder as well and incentivized with the success of that film. Evan Shapiro: So it's a, it's, to a certain [00:09:00] extent, it's an even more professionalized form of fandom there 'cause it is somewhat protected as an offering. It is a security, right? Marc Iserlis: It's a security. Exactly, and it has to go through, a licensed funding portal like ours where we really do the due diligence. And, I like to think of it this way. There's artist equity out there, which is rewarding, the talent on the back end and it, 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, really can be so impactful to a film's success. Even if you look at some of the amazing examples today, Markiplier in January, like how much better could that film have done, even more, even better, had the 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 the start. Evan Shapiro: Importantly in that case, [00:10:00] 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. The licenses and all of the professionalization and the legal requirements and all that mishegas, Republic is the platform that takes care of it. That's an add water and stir for a candidate that gets in and many apply and many get in. You're taking care of all of that. They, that, they don't have to think about any of that, and then these shares are issued out there. Can you give some examples of offerings that have gone out and gone well? Marc Iserlis: Of course, yeah. Republic is that platform to legally allow a company or a film to accept investments from everyday unaccredited folks, people with net worth less than a million dollars. They can come in for those exact same deals that [00:11:00] a yacht person would have at $100 or up to, or a million dollars. We, 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 how we pay out all the investors, we handle the taxes, the KYC, that those are the licenses that we have to allow that next level of fan investing. Evan Shapiro: And 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 that's not at a scale that's necessary. Marc Iserlis: No, it's hard. You would have to have a funding portal. You would have to have a Reg CF license. And those are hard-ish to get, but what's really hard is really dotting all the I's and crossing all the T's in how you market a securities offering to an everyday person. And that's where Republic really comes in as a platform of lawyers and engineers, essentially, to make sure that everything is being done. Of compliance, [00:12:00] 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 having to use expensive bank fees and things like that. So when I say blockchain, I don't mean crypto or NFTs or fart coins or anything like that. Evan Shapiro: Computing platform, basically. Marc Iserlis: It's the computing, yeah, 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 where the future of that technology is going. It's democratizing investment opportunities. 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, that's still only accessible by the folks close [00:13:00] to it in Silicon Valley. And you look at how people are in Polymarket 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. Marion Ranchet: You mentioned three 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 projects? And then we can discuss, you've mentioned a couple of case studies that you've done with filmmakers, with directors, et cetera. Marc Iserlis: So Republic's community is primarily venture and tech having built up over the last 10 years. But really the force comes from the creator or the filmmaker, [00:14:00] telling their community finally, "Hey, let's, let's make a movie together and I'm sharing the upside with you." 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, out" And they were able- Evan Shapiro: How many investors did they get for that? Marc Iserlis: They had almost 400, they had about 380 investors or so. And a great way to raise development funding from not four or 40 people, but 400. 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 all these kind of things. And they went out on the right podcast. 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 [00:15:00] to take part into a legendary film company. Robert Rodriguez- Evan Shapiro: Wait. Can I do the math there? Was that, is that, is that $5,000 per investment? Is that? Marc Iserlis: We had many different check sizes in that. Evan Shapiro: I mean- I know, but that, that averages out. 400 doesn't sound like that many, but when you break it down, it was a $2 million, $2.5 million raise? Marc Iserlis: Yeah. $2 million, yeah. Evan Shapiro: At, in $5,000 increments on average. That's a really interesting way to think about how to raise money for a film development fund. What was the second one you were about to mention? Marc Iserlis: Yeah. In Robert Rodriguez's case, Robert, it made the first ever investable action slate. His, he went out to his fans and said, "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, the Mexican trilogy From Dusk Till Dawn. And, he said, "You know what? I'm, I've, I'm the maverick of film. I broke Sundance when I made my, my, [00:16:00] my Sundance winner for $3,000 and I, Actually ... I've got my own studio in Texas. 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, he started, a movement there and people who are diehard fans of his, they poured in. He went on, he was featured on Joe Rogan, on Tim Ferriss, on Lex Fridman. And after Joe Rogan, he actually sold out the raise over a million dollars in just a few days. And now, and the cool thing was every investor got to pitch Robert a film as part of the slate. So that alone broke the mold. People who never had that level of access, he got to develop. 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, awesome things like have dinner with [00:17:00] Robert, tour the studio, be included in a film. 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, sharing movie ideas. It's, they've called themselves the Brass Knuckle Warriors. So it's really created an incredible community that's gonna turn out for all these films that come out. Marion Ranchet: 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 rely, over-rely on suits from Hollywood, and you wanna make a specific kind of movies and 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 [00:18:00] on the rom-com, and there's not that many rom-com, good ones, being made. So it's, a great way of owning that top line and saying, "This is what I wanna 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. Marc Iserlis: 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. It's not Evan Shapiro: No hat in hand, no hat in hand, going out there looking for $100,000 here, $500,000 here and then having to jump through hoops to get that. It's here's my idea, embrace it, become a part of it and you can help secure its success, too. The Eli Roth example is the biggest one so far, correct? Marc Iserlis: Actually, the [00:19:00] biggest one is, Skybound, which is a large studio that produces The Walking Dead and Invincible. And, when they were featured on- Evan Shapiro: But an indie studio. An indie studio. Marc Iserlis: An indie studio, but a larger size with established IP that's been going for a while, and for the first time is offering an allocation to retail investors into an established studio, which was a first. It's like being, having an access to Blumhouse. And they raised 18 million from over 5,000 investors. And were featured in investment magazines and portfolios, and really just hit these mailing lists and was a fantastic opportunity. Another, another- Evan Shapiro: Again, just to double-click on that's $3,600 per investor Do you know what I mean? Just 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 getting people who wouldn't normally be [00:20:00] investing in these things, and they don't have to break open their every piggy bank to get in. For $3,000, for $1,000, 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. Marc Iserlis: 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're waiting for a 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. When it goes to streaming, et cetera, you're gonna get those- Evan Shapiro: 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. Marc Iserlis: Eli's is 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 us to make." The [00:21:00] most, the most profitable film of 2024 was Terrifier 3 and, unrated, event style distribution, and they wanna make more of those. And Eli launched a new company called The Horror Section and allocated up to 10% of the company to his fans and said, "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 it was a great narrative. I saw Eli at the horror festivals or on different press circuits and just screening the sizzle, which you can still see on republic.com/horrorsection, and just watching these horror fans, often in costume, go nuts. It's a really, exciting, cool opportunity. It's what if you could have owned a share in, Blum- in the next Blumhouse or in the next Pixar, so this was also a new paradigm. Marion Ranchet: What's fascinating is that with all the things you're mentioning, [00:22:00] there's rev share, there's equity, but you've mentioned, dinner and with, Robert Rodriguez or I think you mentioned when we were doing the prep, some money to be killed in the movie. What's fascinating is that I guess that depending on how much you put, if you're putting 40K, it's not just for the fandom. Maybe you wanna have some return on your investment. But you seem to be saying that there's that perk factor that is really driving people to invest. Little things outside the box, but just because people feel that they have a bit of that IP and they contribute, they're happy with just getting a perk here and, there. Is that correct? Marc Iserlis: I think it's, you could argue that crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter have these perks as well, and that's kind of mostly what 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 [00:23:00] 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 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 you, 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 we are very, at this stage, we have an eye on what will perform really well with a large built-in audience. And, one more thing about, it's the big paradigm shift again is you see a lot-- I'm [00:24:00] 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, Mint Mobile or somebody else was trying to send me a, sell me a tequila. When a celebrity launches a tequila, imagine 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 gonna be just evangelists for that brand. I own a piece of this tequila. I'm bringing this one to the party. It's the same with a film, like I own a piece, I wanna tell my friends it's time to go see it. Evan Shapiro: And, there's a couple of important things that I would add to that. First of all, you have three million members. Most of those people aren't film fans and community members. They're investment professionals, right? Or they have a portfolio that they actively invest. They have to, they're already on there 'cause 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 pro- professional investors involved, [00:25:00] which is actually not a bad thing 'cause 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 case of Angel, they get to green light the films in particular. I think you'll start to see some of that there. Then I wanna 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 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 [00:26:00] IP, around their history. There's an animation studio I've brought to you that I think is gonna go incredibly well because they're a collection of fandoms that are gonna 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? Marc Iserlis: And just, to touch on one point earlier, there's a sense around, a sensitivity around, creativity by committee. And I think that's a choice for the issuer, how much they want to, the project, the issuer, they're issuing securities, how much they want to include their community, pitching ideas or town halls, which everyone has done, actually. Ron Perlman did also a town hall. He raised a million dollars on the platform from over 1,000 folks, and he's very passionate about having an artist-first platform. He was really active in the strikes. And often also, about the community on Republic versus the community that [00:27:00] the artist or the project brings, as a community of tech investors, you're gonna, you're gonna rely on Robert telling his fans, Eli telling his fans to come in. And then when that traction in- 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- Marion Ranchet: Interesting Marc Iserlis: Yeah. 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, at the end of the day, everybody goes home and watches Netflix, at the end of their work day and often complains about it. So there's some really, appealing narratives here of 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 describing earlier. Ron Perlman, wants to make a more artist-first, artist-first type of platform and develop, develop films. Again, making artists independent and, creatively independent and free. [00:28:00] And we're working with a huge animation studio, already, a 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, what if it was the first, I'm gonna try not to be too specific, but give paradigms. The first, LBGTQ-owned film where the community can actually green light what they wanna see in the world. The first, could be, there's a lot of, there's a lot of people trying to champion underrepresented films, represented filmmakers. Let's have the community get to enable and greenlight these types of films, and then share in that upside. Films for us, by 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 [00:29:00] democratizing tools of production. YouTube has become the largest distributor, bigger than Disney if you consider it that way. Creators and the creator economy and influencers, they're bigger than celebrities. What is a celebrity these days? It often could be, like, a Brad Pitt in his 60s or maybe a Timothée 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 wanna take that next step with them. And in the financing space, we get to a place where we were, have been so restricted historically because of these securities laws until now, where we can innovate, 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- Evan Shapiro: Oh, wow ... Marc Iserlis: Uniquely have that, that the other also, even crowd investing platforms don't have is [00:30:00] that opportunity. If you have a share in this development slate and you start to see those announcements roll in, that this movie's 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 by selling your stake in Robert's next awesome film. Marion Ranchet: So by the time this episode drops, you'll be in Cannes, right? You're going to the film festival? Marc Iserlis: Yes. Yeah. Marion Ranchet: And so, yeah, I'd be curious because I was there, I've been there a few times. I actually was super pregnant on the red carpet. But, this is a very old school, still, market, right? I feel they've tried to bring an innovation space. There's Meet The Streamers, where they're trying to be a bit more encompassing in terms of what the ecosystem looks like. But I wonder how your [00:31:00] conversations are going with people from that industry when you're pitching this model. Have you done that already? What is that reaction? What are you getting from people? Marc Iserlis: I think, these film markets are the best place to get on panels and to talk to journalists and to really educate the market that there's now this third way of financing a film. Financing is what these markets are all about, whether it's pre-sales or making deals or, getting acquired. And to educate independent producers, these are all independent film festivals that, if you have that right narrative, if you have that community, keep it independent. And my thesis for how this affects the entire revenue 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 [00:32:00] 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. We talked about Angel Studios earlier. Sound of Freedom raised $5 million just for PNA because they could, nobody else wanted to distribute their film and created an army of audience members that, and they all, got paid back their 20% within a few months, et cetera. It's just new tools of getting movies out into the world, and even the narrative like, 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, could have funded the PNA 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 at [00:33:00] this time with all the change happening in the market, I think this year the theme is gonna be all about the creator economy. It just gets more and more relevant, every year. Marion Ranchet: So Marc, we, talked about the business model, right? And how, those investors, get equity. Any examples of a project where people actually saw money coming their way? Marc Iserlis: Yes. Actually, the first raise that we launched 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. Investors invested into a slate of awesome new Pressman IP and we just recently paid out those investors from the sale of Bad Lieutenant Tokyo to Neon, which was part of that slate. In that sense, we made history by being the first investable slate to really pay out, these hundreds of [00:34:00] investors. Evan Shapiro: That's amazing Marc Iserlis: And using the technology under the hood to ensure that keeps coming as films sell, or get distributed, or have, get net profits, producer fees, rights fees, et cetera. Marion Ranchet: Cool. And so what else do you have cooking? We said you would be at Cannes. You've announced a couple of weeks back a massive project on sci-fi. Marc Iserlis: Yeah. So one of our partnerships that we are really, that you'll see a lot more this summer is essentially the world's largest science fiction competition. So we're partnered with the XPRIZE, Google, and Range Media Partners to mount this. This XPRIZE is started by Peter Diamandis, who is a billionaire investor and also philanthropist, but also he's all about longevity and science and space tech, and he's launched these multi-million dollar prizes for folks. Now he's doing one in film to essentially inspire the next Star Trek. It's a positive vision of [00:35:00] 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 and engineers. Evan Shapiro: Sci-fi, 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? Marc Iserlis: Yeah. That's right, and we've got the Roddenberry Foundation involved. There's a $3.5 million cash prize already funded, by A16Z and Balaji Srinivasan and Cathie Wood from Arc 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 three-minute visions of the future on AI or whatever tools they wanna use. That competition is open till the end of August, and filmmakers pitch, and fans can also invest in the next Star Trek, and [00:36:00] that's where we come in to co-own that positive vision of the future. And so obviously with the creator community, the sci-fi community, we're getting a lot of really fantastic submissions and the prizes will be revealed 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 at futurevisionxprize.com. Marion Ranchet: Cool, and you'll have to keep us posted when, when the prize is awarded. We'll cover it on the pod again. Exciting to see how this, this comes to life. Evan Shapiro: We talk all the time about producers and independent studios and creators protecting themselves, not waiting around to be green-lit. This platform to me is a perfect case study in thinking of new ways to green-light yourself. This is an opportunity for both the fans and the artists to collaborate, and it, I think it sits at the center of everything we've been discussing all year. [00:37:00] 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 Marc, at any event, go up to him and talk to him. He's one of the most interesting, thoughtful people you're gonna meet in our industry. Thanks, Marc, so much. Marc Iserlis: Thank you so much, Evan and Marion. Really an, a privilege to be on your show. Marion, that was, incredible Marion Ranchet: Yeah, I wanna be, I wanna look up, the platform and see where I could invest because what he said about, underserved topics and communities, I feel strongly, about that. Evan Shapiro: And for the case study that I talked to, talked about with Mark when he was on, is this animation studio that'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, [00:38:00] 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 green light their own business themselves. They wanna 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 opportunity, we're talking about 4 or 500 people raising $2 million. 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, the future of our industry can go. Marion Ranchet: I think we need, so we need someone. So with that's what we're trying to do, give that visibility to companies who are doing things at, in a different way. But I would say that a lot of people within our ecosystem could use to get that education, information- Evan Shapiro: Agreed. Marion Ranchet: Somehow. [00:39:00] And it should not necessarily come from us, but the French market for example. Evan Shapiro: Yeah. No, but- Yeah, I agree Marion Ranchet: We have a role to play, but I'm thinking about in France, for example, the CNC, which is at the core of how French cinema is financed. Evan Shapiro: Yeah. Marion Ranchet: Why aren't they talking about all of those new ways, right? Evan Shapiro: We're talking, just to be fair, we're talking to IBC about this. We're talking about MIPCOM to this. Yeah. So we have to be pushing this conversation at these conferences. It's why I wanted to have Marc on this podcast. Marion Ranchet: Agreed. Evan Shapiro: Now he's gonna 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 gonna have a whole conversation around the new model. I'm hoping Marc can join that panel. He has a lot of travel. But, Sam Pressman, who did work, Pressman Films, with Republic Film to do a [00:40:00] raise, is gonna be on a panel around the new model this summer. Which reminds me, if you use the code MediaUniverse10 right now, you can get 10% off a pass to Stream TV in Denver this summer, where we're gonna be talking about this and a whole bunch of other ideas about how to move our business forward. Marion, 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 gonna love Marc and this idea. This has been the Media Odyssey podcast. That is Marion Ranchet. Marion Ranchet: And that is Evan Shapiro. We'll see you next time.