Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Strictly Business, the podcast in
Speaker 1: which we speak with some of the brightest minds working
Speaker 1: in media today. I'm Andrew Wallenstein with Variety. The TV
Speaker 1: mega hit The Walking Dead ends its historic run this
Speaker 1: Sunday on a m C. That's far from the last
Speaker 1: you'll hear from this franchise, so says David Albert, the
Speaker 1: CEO of sky Bound Entertainment, the company that created this
Speaker 1: zombie sensation. But there's a lot more to sky Bound,
Speaker 1: as I've learned interviewing David last week at the Future
Speaker 1: of TV conference. Stay tuned after the break for this
Speaker 1: really interesting conversation, and we're back with sky Bound Entertainment
Speaker 1: CEO David Albert. Well, good to talk to you, David.
Speaker 1: I it's interesting to have this conversation at a time
Speaker 1: where the sort of marquee show for sky Bound, a
Speaker 1: little little show called The Walking Dead, is ending its run.
Speaker 1: Although to say it's ending also feels weird given that
Speaker 1: the franchise, broader than just that show, has such a
Speaker 1: long future ahead of it. So I wanted to start with, like,
Speaker 1: could you possibly have imagined when that show first launched?
Speaker 1: What was this twenty years ago? Twenty seasons ago that
Speaker 1: it would be everything that it became. So the comic
Speaker 1: launched twenty years ago, we're coming up next year. This
Speaker 1: is the eleventh season. Short answers. No, I mean I knew.
Speaker 1: I knew the comic was special. I knew the story
Speaker 1: that we had was special. I knew that there's a
Speaker 1: great opportunity like a white space that nobody had done
Speaker 1: serialized horror, and I knew that that was something that
Speaker 1: was very much in demand. So I felt like we
Speaker 1: had a great window. But there's no way that I
Speaker 1: could have known that at that time we were going
Speaker 1: to go for twelve years, you know, multiple spinoffs, you know,
Speaker 1: billions of dollars of merchandise and video games out. No,
Speaker 1: I had no idea that. So after twelve seasons, what
Speaker 1: do you attribute the outsized success of The Walking Dead? What? What?
Speaker 1: What do you think about it resonated so well? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I always look at sort of the product
Speaker 1: market fit right in general, and I feel like, one
Speaker 1: there was no serio. I sawror, and I feel like
Speaker 1: that's now. It's really hard to imagine that because just
Speaker 1: how much horror is on television. But just thinking back
Speaker 1: to that landscape no one had really done. And you know,
Speaker 1: there have been an episode of horror, anthological horror, but
Speaker 1: nothing that had come on that had been like, hey,
Speaker 1: we're gonna treat this men seriously and sort of do that.
Speaker 1: So I think that was a major aspect of it.
Speaker 1: I think separately, you know, Um, I think we got
Speaker 1: lucky and hit the zeitgeist in in a real way.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, people the digital world had really
Speaker 1: sort of started to transform people's lives. Um and Chuck
Speaker 1: cost Woman had written a not ed I want to say,
Speaker 1: like right after the show came out about like why
Speaker 1: he thought zombies were resonating with people, and part of it,
Speaker 1: he said it was attributable to email the notion that
Speaker 1: the more that you sort of whacked them down, the
Speaker 1: more they come back at you. And I did think
Speaker 1: there was something existential that we tapped into the notion
Speaker 1: that our work lives, we're sort of attacking us and
Speaker 1: getting us at all the different areas and hours that
Speaker 1: used to be safe and awful limits from work. So
Speaker 1: I think there was something there, Um that we sort
Speaker 1: of pepped into. The zepest Wells was sort of right time,
Speaker 1: right place, combined was sort of a lucky break. That's
Speaker 1: an interesting theory. I would add to it that And
Speaker 1: I think this also spoke to I Lost was such
Speaker 1: a big hit. I think there's something about a show
Speaker 1: where do you see a society that has to sort
Speaker 1: of peel away from modern technology and go back to
Speaker 1: this sort of primitive use your hands to to fight
Speaker 1: and survive kind of thing. I mean, do you think
Speaker 1: that might be also a theory? Oh yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I think I think people love those stories, right, Like
Speaker 1: you know, I grew up reading books like Hatchett and
Speaker 1: Mackay and Lord of the Flies. Right, those are sort
Speaker 1: of like, you know, the nature of humanity questions like
Speaker 1: what happens when you take away all of our creature
Speaker 1: comforts and you put us there? Right? And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, some of us like to think we would
Speaker 1: do well. And I think it's it really poses those
Speaker 1: questions like how would you react in those situations? And um,
Speaker 1: I think it was. You know, I think I think
Speaker 1: we got lucky with with that as well. But yes,
Speaker 1: I think people love seeing the sort of stripping people
Speaker 1: way back to back to everything. And then on top
Speaker 1: of it, I feel like there was we also really
Speaker 1: don't we really st lead into the soap oper angle,
Speaker 1: right and sort of you know, if I pitch you
Speaker 1: this this story as opposed to some of abo zombies,
Speaker 1: where I said, Hey, a guy wakes up from from
Speaker 1: a coma to find that his best friend has taken
Speaker 1: up with his wife, and his wife is pregnant and
Speaker 1: he's not sure if if the baby is his or
Speaker 1: his best friends. Right, that sounds like a daytime soap
Speaker 1: from when I was growing up. Um, but you had
Speaker 1: zombies and that becomes the Walking Day. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think there's that formula of sort of the back
Speaker 1: to basics. I think that's worked for everything, going back
Speaker 1: to survivor to I think you look at a show
Speaker 1: like Yellow Jackets on Showtime Today that has a bit
Speaker 1: of that flavor. But I also want to talk about again,
Speaker 1: this is so much more than just a show. It
Speaker 1: is a franchise. You've got other versions on the air,
Speaker 1: You've got so many different executions and other media. So
Speaker 1: can you give us sort of a the full scope
Speaker 1: of when we call it a franchise, everything that's going
Speaker 1: on right now for the Walking Dead, I mean, first
Speaker 1: and foremost, the Walking Dead is a comic it's the
Speaker 1: best selling independent black boy indpendent comic of all time.
Speaker 1: Um came out in two thousand three. And you know,
Speaker 1: everything really for us stems and starts and end with
Speaker 1: the comic book, Right. That's sort of that's our canon,
Speaker 1: that's our more. Anytime we have a question, everybody goes
Speaker 1: back to the comic. Obviously, we have all the shows
Speaker 1: that are own. There's Walking Dead if you're the Walking Dead,
Speaker 1: Towns and the Walking Dead, a number spinoffs, additional shows
Speaker 1: sort of in production now, and of course they're Talking Dead.
Speaker 1: Which I also think was a huge opportunity for us
Speaker 1: to sort of sort of made the show successful was
Speaker 1: embracing the notion of a water cooler. Don't just do
Speaker 1: a show that's a water cooler show, make a water
Speaker 1: cooler show about the show that's a water cooler show. Right,
Speaker 1: So it sort of really tapped into that sort of
Speaker 1: meta conversation, which I think was really helpful and make
Speaker 1: it successful. Outside of that, we have in a number
Speaker 1: or video games, right. So we started with the tell
Speaker 1: Tales Walking Dead, which was a narrative driven game, which
Speaker 1: is huge, right, and it's some people's favorite character is
Speaker 1: Ri Grimes from the comic or from the show about
Speaker 1: a lot of people's favor character is Clementine, who originated
Speaker 1: un tell Tales Walking Dead, um, and is you know,
Speaker 1: now we're sort of giving an additional life. UM. There's
Speaker 1: a series of you know y a graphic novels that
Speaker 1: we've launched from Tilly Walden that follows Clementine. So that's
Speaker 1: been really exciting to see the title game. I can't
Speaker 1: stress enough how transformative it was, not just for us
Speaker 1: as a company, um, but even beyond that sort of
Speaker 1: revitalizing sort of the narrative gaming genre. UM. You know,
Speaker 1: up to that point, I would say the narrative gaming
Speaker 1: was sort of a bit of a backwater UM in
Speaker 1: that space. But we really took the television approach. We're like,
Speaker 1: writing is front and center. We're gonna run of writers room, um,
Speaker 1: and it's going to be about decisions and emotions, and
Speaker 1: approached that game with the goal of trying to make
Speaker 1: people cry, right, which was not an obvious play when
Speaker 1: you're looking at a zombie game. And that game went
Speaker 1: on to do you know, over a hundred game the
Speaker 1: year awards, done over a billion dollars retail. It's been
Speaker 1: a transformative moment for us to show the power of
Speaker 1: storytelling in the interactive format. Um. So from there, we
Speaker 1: now have thirteen games out. Um we have a number
Speaker 1: of games in market now or number more games coming.
Speaker 1: We've done everything from uh, we did the Walking Red Wine,
Speaker 1: we did Waking Dead Coffee, we did Walking Dead cruises,
Speaker 1: we had Samurai Serbs, baby onesies. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: we pretty much spanned the gamut of pretty much anywhere
Speaker 1: we can tell an interesting and propelling story, we do.
Speaker 1: And you know, going back to that first question, I
Speaker 1: think the approach that you just laid out is also
Speaker 1: part of probably why The Walking Dead has been such
Speaker 1: a stalwart on television for so long, all these different
Speaker 1: other executions of that same I p and that kind
Speaker 1: of probably has sort of a virtuous cycle to it, right,
Speaker 1: the video game sense to the TV show, that TV
Speaker 1: show sends to the video game for sure. Although what
Speaker 1: I would say is, I think, you know, there's a
Speaker 1: difference between franchises set around a single character, which can
Speaker 1: be hugely successful, and I think it was easier for
Speaker 1: us because we had a world, right, we had a
Speaker 1: world with a set of rules that was more important
Speaker 1: than an individual character. Rick Rhimes hugely important, you know,
Speaker 1: key figure for us in Walking Dead, Laura, but Rick
Speaker 1: Rhymes doesn't show up in anything that Commentine does. And
Speaker 1: I think that idea that you can take that concept
Speaker 1: and extended out as long as you treated it with
Speaker 1: the same degree of seriousness, um that we did in
Speaker 1: the main show. That allowed I think the universe sort
Speaker 1: of feel bigger and broader than it would have otherwise.
Speaker 1: So I feel like that was a huge benefit for us.
Speaker 1: So when you talk about a world, when you talk
Speaker 1: about a franchise, what is the long term planning like?
Speaker 1: Because I will not blink an eye if The Walking
Speaker 1: Dead is on in some shape or form thirty forty
Speaker 1: years from now, and so do you plan that far out?
Speaker 1: I mean, how does that work? It must be horrifically complex.
Speaker 1: You know, we have absolute concrete plans for the next
Speaker 1: five years, right, So I have contracts and dates that
Speaker 1: I have laid out on a board that I can
Speaker 1: show you that would literally show you everything that we're
Speaker 1: doing for the next five years of The Walking Dead.
Speaker 1: We then have from years six and ten, we have
Speaker 1: sort of like um goals and some early prep work
Speaker 1: that we're doing. UM. So that's been sort of a
Speaker 1: beneficial thing. And then beyond that, we really just have
Speaker 1: sort of like aspirations, So you know, we have you know,
Speaker 1: high level aspirations, but uh and sort of directions we
Speaker 1: want to take it opportunities that we like to do it,
Speaker 1: but our goal, our macro goals, we think that there's
Speaker 1: opportunities to be telling stories in this space for the
Speaker 1: rest of our natural lives and probably for some unattracted
Speaker 1: And I think that's also part of the Walking Dead legacy,
Speaker 1: particularly on television, where what has now become the norm
Speaker 1: is if you have a successful show, it must become
Speaker 1: a franchise. You must figure out other iterations. Obviously The
Speaker 1: Walking Dead wasn't the first to do that, but do
Speaker 1: you think it's sort of accelerated that trend. I think
Speaker 1: so absolutely. I mean, I mean, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of this, you know, comes from that, It comes from
Speaker 1: genre and from B movies and from B television, right,
Speaker 1: Like that's where we took our roots. Right, you know,
Speaker 1: we'll go back and look at Star Trek, right, why
Speaker 1: is Star Trek and able to survived for decades and
Speaker 1: decades it had you know, obviously Captain Kirkson amazing character,
Speaker 1: Captain cards amazing character. You know this world we have
Speaker 1: the world of the Federation. You have all these different
Speaker 1: planets and racist species, so there's always something new to
Speaker 1: dig into and explore a different angle. And just like
Speaker 1: you said, I think survival and how you rebuild society
Speaker 1: when all our rules are taken away, I think it's
Speaker 1: something that we all think about, right like um, as
Speaker 1: a parent, I'm sure everybody every parent I know is
Speaker 1: her their kids at some point say that's not their right,
Speaker 1: and they'll say, okay, well, why is it not fair that? Well,
Speaker 1: if I was doing it to do like this, and
Speaker 1: I remember as a kid, I would say the same
Speaker 1: thing in my parents, that's unfair. Fair I was the parent,
Speaker 1: I would do it like this. Everybody wants that opportunity
Speaker 1: to start civilization scratch. Everyone wants to be like, hey,
Speaker 1: here's how I would build the ideal society. And I
Speaker 1: think this gives you like freedom and the license to
Speaker 1: go ahead and do that, which I think is really
Speaker 1: really powerful. And you know you guys have certainly gone ahead.
Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is when I think
Speaker 1: about the wealth of I p executions across so many media,
Speaker 1: I do wonder as well, whether there is a debate
Speaker 1: or a conversation internally about putting too much out there
Speaker 1: exhausting the i P. Because we've seen some pretty big
Speaker 1: i P. I think of you know, Disney and Star
Speaker 1: Wars as an example of too much too soon, and
Speaker 1: you could really uh leave the I P worse for weary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so what we try to do, you know, I
Speaker 1: think one of the one of the things that I
Speaker 1: think happens in these spaces is sometimes people tell the
Speaker 1: same story over and over, right, Like I go back
Speaker 1: to you know, um, the old the old version of
Speaker 1: like you know, you go watch the movie theater that
Speaker 1: you play the video game at home. This is this
Speaker 1: in the eighties, and you're basically playing the same character
Speaker 1: doing the same thing. And that sort of notion of
Speaker 1: just doing the same thing and not as high resolution
Speaker 1: or high quality form, I think is the classics sort
Speaker 1: of melting ice cube approach, where you're you are getting
Speaker 1: diminishing in terms. The goal for us is always to
Speaker 1: use whatever aspect of storytelling that we're using to open
Speaker 1: up a new frontier and explore something we wouldn't have otherwise.
Speaker 1: So let me give you two examples, right, So one
Speaker 1: I talked about Clementine a lot, right where we say, hey, look,
Speaker 1: this character other than the Lens shows up in that
Speaker 1: Telltale game for about thirty seconds. Other than that, there's
Speaker 1: not sorry, there's really a little buddy Um the outside
Speaker 1: of that, there's really no intersection with the rest of
Speaker 1: the Cannon that we're telling about. So it's complete new story,
Speaker 1: complete new universe to sort of really explore Um separately.
Speaker 1: Like when we do different games we're trying to use,
Speaker 1: whether it's an RPG, whether at the real time strategy game,
Speaker 1: whether it's a training a content trading card game, whatever
Speaker 1: model we're using, we're trying to explore different aspects. So
Speaker 1: I think part of the reason why, for instance, I
Speaker 1: love Star Wars and I grew up loving Stones and
Speaker 1: Star Wars was huge to me. But so many of
Speaker 1: the movies were just retelling the original story over and
Speaker 1: over again, and I was like, it wasn't until the
Speaker 1: Mandalorian where I was like, oh, yes, this is something new,
Speaker 1: this is something exciting. That got me excited. I was like,
Speaker 1: baby Yoda, like I've been waiting for something like that forever,
Speaker 1: Like now that was powerful again, that was sort of
Speaker 1: really meaningful and impactful to me. And so we try
Speaker 1: to do the same thing. I don't think we always succeed,
Speaker 1: but we try to do the same thing. Um in
Speaker 1: our gaming, inside of our books, always try to explore
Speaker 1: something new every time that you're you're if you're just
Speaker 1: an arena rock band playing the hits, you've no anger,
Speaker 1: gone to the place where you're vibrant and alive. And
Speaker 1: despite us being the walking day, we have to remain
Speaker 1: vibrant alive if we're going to survive in this media ecosystem.
Speaker 1: And so I want to bring it back to sky
Speaker 1: Bound itself because this this is this approach essentially defines
Speaker 1: your company. You're not just looking for, oh hey, this
Speaker 1: is gonna make a good show. You're looking for And
Speaker 1: I'm using a parlance you taught me many years ago,
Speaker 1: the wheel of awesome approach. Talk about what what on
Speaker 1: earth that means and how that's become why that makes
Speaker 1: sense for the sky Bound Sure. Uh So, first of all,
Speaker 1: I love the fact that you remember the wheel of
Speaker 1: awesome because it really is the secret sauce for what
Speaker 1: we do. Uh. The one is we we put a
Speaker 1: creator at the center of our business. We think that
Speaker 1: historically Hollywood has been organized around taking creators creations and
Speaker 1: then sort of sit arming them and keep them out
Speaker 1: of the process, and we think that that's some mistake. UM. So,
Speaker 1: my business partners Robert Kirkman, he's the creator to Walking Dead,
Speaker 1: Creative Invincible, and so he's at the core of the business. Now,
Speaker 1: he doesn't do all the properties we do, and he's
Speaker 1: involved in everything, but when it's somebody else's property, it's
Speaker 1: that other creator that we put in the center. We're
Speaker 1: using the model that we built around him for the
Speaker 1: Walking Dead Invincible for other creators as well. So we
Speaker 1: put them at the center, and then we basically go
Speaker 1: in every medium that their pictures said and being right,
Speaker 1: so um comics, film, television, video games, audio, live events, merchandising,
Speaker 1: board games, video games, everywhere they want to go, and
Speaker 1: we end up trying to take them there. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, for creators like look, I don't see that,
Speaker 1: I don't see I don't care what you're telling about,
Speaker 1: don't see this ever being a board game, or I
Speaker 1: don't see this ever being a comic book, we won't
Speaker 1: do it. We sort of we follow their will because
Speaker 1: we think that we're able to make better decisions if
Speaker 1: we're sort of very much in tune with those those aspects.
Speaker 1: So I'd say historically production companies are oriented around a
Speaker 1: method of distribution. They're making television to be displayed in
Speaker 1: cable or broadcast, and they're making movies to be in
Speaker 1: theaters or now extremely right, we're organized around building ike
Speaker 1: and connecting creators with their audience and every area and
Speaker 1: every medium that they want to operate. And I think
Speaker 1: that's the thing that separates us out. When we explain
Speaker 1: that to creators, they always would say it was man,
Speaker 1: that's awesome, or like, yeah, that's the real muscle. But
Speaker 1: how do I'm picturing someone from AMC Networks listening to
Speaker 1: what you just said, and I'm wondering whether they would think, like,
Speaker 1: wait a second. You know, we're the network that puts
Speaker 1: the show on the air. Shouldn't we be the ones
Speaker 1: in control and we're giving you notes on what the
Speaker 1: show would could be. So is there any sort of
Speaker 1: tension there in terms of you know, yes, it's nice
Speaker 1: that you know, you want the creator to have a
Speaker 1: direct link to the audience, but on TV it's not
Speaker 1: doesn't really work that way. Yeah, I mean, so short answers, Yes, right,
Speaker 1: there's definitely there's definitely tension, and there's tension in every
Speaker 1: creative process, right, there's tension between the writer and the director,
Speaker 1: there's between the directing the actors. I think the tension
Speaker 1: is uh is necessary, um And I think that ultimately though,
Speaker 1: if you look at our execution and market, it's hard
Speaker 1: to argue that we've done anything but be additive and
Speaker 1: value value creative to the brand. So UM, if you
Speaker 1: want to speak at it from just a purely high level, UM,
Speaker 1: when we go ahead ahead with third parties, we generally
Speaker 1: come out on top because if we're creating something, I
Speaker 1: have the creator that I'm talking to, they have a
Speaker 1: consumer products team that's organ eyes around a decision making
Speaker 1: process with hundreds of different stakeholders, and they will come
Speaker 1: out with a safer and more rounded product. But in
Speaker 1: this market that doesn't work. Fans sniffed out like decisions
Speaker 1: by committee and a heartbeat, and they can make they'll
Speaker 1: reject something without without even being able to tell you why.
Speaker 1: But when you dig in, it is because of this
Speaker 1: feels safe and sanitize, and it's not that we're so
Speaker 1: aggressive and risk taking, but we're authentic to the brand
Speaker 1: in a way and not in sort of the marketing
Speaker 1: speak of what authentic means. But we're really digging into
Speaker 1: sort of like you know what. I remember we were
Speaker 1: making this wine, right, and we were having a problem
Speaker 1: with with the label. And the big thing for us
Speaker 1: is we want to make wine and we're putting wine
Speaker 1: in the market. It couldn't be and Robert challenged us
Speaker 1: that it can't just be a label slot. There has
Speaker 1: to be something authentic to it that how do we
Speaker 1: tell a narrative with the bottle of one? Most narratives
Speaker 1: about wine are, oh, there's terre and that this farmer
Speaker 1: has been here for you know, hundreds of years years.
Speaker 1: We didn't have any of that. So what we did
Speaker 1: is we made an app where you could hold up
Speaker 1: your phone in front of the bottle, right, and a
Speaker 1: zombie would jump out. You get the second bottle and
Speaker 1: Rick would come out and fight the zombie. Right. So
Speaker 1: there's a whole little mini narrative that we're able to
Speaker 1: imbue into the idea of drinking this wall. But we
Speaker 1: were having problems, like we were. We all looked at
Speaker 1: this label and it wasn't working, and we weren't following
Speaker 1: our own advice right. So we were going through we
Speaker 1: had design firms and all these people telling us what
Speaker 1: we should be doing, and it was taking forever. So
Speaker 1: I was like, Robert, you just come in and just
Speaker 1: look at this and fix it. He's like, you know what,
Speaker 1: you have the legs all along. He's like, just move
Speaker 1: the leg like this, move like that. And instantly as
Speaker 1: we were testing it, the test results went up quantitatively.
Speaker 1: Moving the legs in two seconds made the made the
Speaker 1: sort of the score on the on the label go
Speaker 1: up like twenty points. We were there working with like
Speaker 1: a whole team. So my point is that like that,
Speaker 1: that uh, consensus driven, you know, committee drink of an
Speaker 1: approach will fail when you have somebody who is a
Speaker 1: visionary who actually understands what is key about the inforation
Speaker 1: and the creatile will always beat the committee every time.
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right
Speaker 1: back with more with David Albert, and we're back with
Speaker 1: sky Bound Entertainment CEO. David Albert. I certainly don't want
Speaker 1: to give the impression that sky Bound is a one
Speaker 1: trick pony, you know, with the Walking Dead, franchise. You
Speaker 1: mentioned Invincible, which is a animated show on Amazon, and
Speaker 1: you know, right off the bat, there's what strikes me
Speaker 1: as this contrast between The Walking Dead really launched in
Speaker 1: a different age of television than Invincible did, which is
Speaker 1: obviously smack in the middle of the streaming age. Is
Speaker 1: there a difference in terms of launching shows selling shows
Speaker 1: in this newer environment. Absolutely, I mean I think that
Speaker 1: in general, the media landscape is much more cluttered, right,
Speaker 1: there's way more options, um when we launched. When we launched,
Speaker 1: you know, Walking Dead, I don't even think Amazon was
Speaker 1: doing uh, you know, Netflix was just getting into the
Speaker 1: originals business, right, Like, it was completely different landscape. Streaming
Speaker 1: was just the thing that was people coming on. You know,
Speaker 1: you talked to young TV exact today. They don't know
Speaker 1: what Basic Cable is, right. They remember as a thing
Speaker 1: they grew up with, but they don't think of it
Speaker 1: as a vibrant place, whereas Walking Dead cut his teeth
Speaker 1: in the Basic Cable. Um, So now we have to
Speaker 1: think a little bit different. And also there's been so
Speaker 1: much more explored, right, Like you've had the rise of
Speaker 1: farm language ships like squid Game and Narcoes and uh,
Speaker 1: you know all these different shows from all over the
Speaker 1: world favoda um that sort of have taken up market
Speaker 1: share and the realm of the possible is has been expanded,
Speaker 1: but the challenge for us was still trying to find
Speaker 1: that space. So um we looked for. One of the
Speaker 1: things that Bet Invincible that was interesting was nobody was
Speaker 1: doing hour long R rated animation. Right. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of comedy that's being done, tom of comedy, there's kids
Speaker 1: action that was being done, but there's nobody that's making
Speaker 1: our long sort of adult themed to the animation. And
Speaker 1: we felt like that was a real window for us
Speaker 1: to sort of go in and attack. I mean, what
Speaker 1: you're talking about is sort of one of the classic
Speaker 1: things you learn about great television, which is that often
Speaker 1: it's when you zagged to everyone else's zig that you
Speaker 1: get something that resonates. But I think the flip side
Speaker 1: of that is, is it hard to sell an Amazon
Speaker 1: or an AMC on something that you know from that
Speaker 1: network approach, it's always about clone whatever works, clone whatever works,
Speaker 1: and that's not what you're doing. So what's the secret
Speaker 1: to selling streamers or networks on something that is not
Speaker 1: a clone? I mean, I don't know that it's we
Speaker 1: have a specific secret, right, I think a lot of
Speaker 1: it it's about trying to create a specific argument. One
Speaker 1: of the things that we had with with both Wanged
Speaker 1: and Invincibles, we have these hugely successful comics that sort
Speaker 1: of pointed to, uh, these fan bases, right, so we say, hey,
Speaker 1: look we have we have some data. Right, these things
Speaker 1: have been around for at this point going on twenty years,
Speaker 1: so there's there is an embedded fan base. We had
Speaker 1: done different activations previously that had all gone very very well,
Speaker 1: and then you know, we were able to find some
Speaker 1: key influencers in the space on all these different areas
Speaker 1: that sort of vet out the success. So for instance,
Speaker 1: you know, we had Steven Youan and Sandra O and
Speaker 1: Hersha Ali and Seth Rogan come on as voices early
Speaker 1: on in a way that people are like, oh, like,
Speaker 1: I didn't think a cartoon was going to be able
Speaker 1: to get that type of talent onto a show like that.
Speaker 1: So it was validating from that perspective, And honestly, we've
Speaker 1: come at it from we've always been cheaper relative to
Speaker 1: the other entrance in space, right, So um, you know,
Speaker 1: you look at what Amazon is doing with Lord of
Speaker 1: the Rings. I mean, you know, I would say we
Speaker 1: have multiple seasons that will cost less than one episode
Speaker 1: of that show, and the show is the show. That
Speaker 1: show is great. We're trying to do something different. Um.
Speaker 1: So part of it's also like, hey, look we're a
Speaker 1: lower cost experiment, but we can still reach a mass audience. Um.
Speaker 1: And we will point to different things. But it's also
Speaker 1: then we'll get like, you know, you know, getting Frank
Speaker 1: Darbon to come on to direct the Pile of the
Speaker 1: Walking Dead was validating, Uh, you know, to get someone
Speaker 1: of that caliber on the same way to get our
Speaker 1: talent on this show was So that was part of
Speaker 1: the ways in which we go about trying to you know,
Speaker 1: sort of discount some of that risk of it. So
Speaker 1: when you say you approach the network or the streamer
Speaker 1: with data on the audience, what are we talking about,
Speaker 1: like what was how did you sell Amazon Invincible? What
Speaker 1: data did you bring to bear? So we're able to
Speaker 1: bring in because we're coming from these other media, right
Speaker 1: we're able to say, look, here's the number of comics
Speaker 1: we've sold right here, the number of live engagement we
Speaker 1: had done we had partnered years back with MTV and
Speaker 1: done this sort of like this motion comic of Invincible
Speaker 1: that ran on MTV that had giant um giant billboards
Speaker 1: and Times Square that I got millions and millions of downloads. Right,
Speaker 1: We had done collectibles and actually figure so I was
Speaker 1: able to get the sales data, readership data, um an
Speaker 1: exploitation data that was able to make them think, okay, like,
Speaker 1: hey there is something here. It's not like we're coming
Speaker 1: up with a completely original idea that no one's ever
Speaker 1: heard of. So it was a discounted and by the way,
Speaker 1: I love complete originals right like you know, I love
Speaker 1: what Christopher Nolan does. Um, but getting some of those
Speaker 1: things moving in a new space and TV sometimes to
Speaker 1: be really hard. I want to turn to the financing
Speaker 1: side of sky Band. You guys went through a second round,
Speaker 1: I believe in May. Uh what is your approach there
Speaker 1: in terms of funding? What are you looking to do
Speaker 1: with that funding? Yeah? So, I mean part of it is,
Speaker 1: you know, we're we're one. We're moving into different areas
Speaker 1: of production, right, so for years we started as a
Speaker 1: common company that also did television. We've getting into films.
Speaker 1: So we have our first big studio movies coming out
Speaker 1: next year called rent Field with the Cage, uh nic
Speaker 1: holeton Acrofina. We have a whole big audio department are
Speaker 1: One of our biggest hits is called Impact Winter, which
Speaker 1: was a top right original for Audible that we have
Speaker 1: a second season coming out in a third season production
Speaker 1: as well, so we're building out our audio capabilities. Video
Speaker 1: games has been a huge growth area for us, so
Speaker 1: we're we're buying initial capacity, uh, increasing our ability to
Speaker 1: sort of speak to record to fans. So we for
Speaker 1: years we've been licensing games, we've built up publishing capacity.
Speaker 1: So for instance, Telltel the game I mentioned earlier, Uh,
Speaker 1: they went out of that company went out of business
Speaker 1: and us on bankruptcy. We swooped in and picked up
Speaker 1: those rights, finished the game, and we're now the publisher
Speaker 1: of Record, but we also now publish other games as well.
Speaker 1: We had a great game come out called Beform in
Speaker 1: Your Eyes. Um. Those are really sort of a moving,
Speaker 1: an emotional game that want to bath to, so we're
Speaker 1: doing more of that. We also now have bought some
Speaker 1: development capacity so we're able to sort of do the
Speaker 1: full stack in the game space. We do tabletop stuff,
Speaker 1: so it really has been for us about really expanding
Speaker 1: the reach and filling in the wheel of awesome so
Speaker 1: that we can better service our creators directly. The other
Speaker 1: piece to it is we're really building up that audience
Speaker 1: opponent where we can make things directly for the audience.
Speaker 1: Of the audience is telling us that they want so
Speaker 1: we can really be in direct dialogue and communication with
Speaker 1: the audience. That is a real focus for us. It's
Speaker 1: been a bed rock principle since the founding of the company.
Speaker 1: We've been trying to figure out how do we get there,
Speaker 1: um as aggressively as possible. What do you mean by
Speaker 1: their the audience funding the content partnership with the audience, right, so,
Speaker 1: whether it's whether it's funding so like we have a huge,
Speaker 1: hugely successful Kickstarter business where we've watched table talk games
Speaker 1: and books and comics and all sorts of different merchandise items, um,
Speaker 1: so it could be more like that, or it could
Speaker 1: just be like greater communication between us and the audience
Speaker 1: to say, hey, you love this comic, what is it
Speaker 1: you want to see being done with it? And then
Speaker 1: figuring out then how we can use that information to
Speaker 1: sort of make more inform pitch. When you go into
Speaker 1: places like streamers and say, hey, look, not only are
Speaker 1: we coming with this information the or this I P
Speaker 1: but we're coming to this information about this audience space
Speaker 1: will come, will come to the table to do this.
Speaker 1: And then so thinking about ways in which we can
Speaker 1: sort of increase that frequency communication. That doesn't feel uh
Speaker 1: spam me, that feels much more sort of like they're
Speaker 1: participating in this sort of you know, the creation of
Speaker 1: this process. When I hear you talk about this, it
Speaker 1: reminds me a bit of some experimentation we're seeing in
Speaker 1: the TV industry right now. I think about Fox, for instance,
Speaker 1: where through web three and n f t s they're
Speaker 1: kind of selling this notion of hey, you the audience
Speaker 1: can own a portion of this show, finance this show.
Speaker 1: Are you starting to think along those lines? I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I've I've heard a lot of those things,
Speaker 1: and I think that the current thinking there is probably
Speaker 1: just early. I think that there's more meaningful participations in
Speaker 1: ways to go right Like, um, you know, I've seen
Speaker 1: this where if you box something on Kickstar or you're
Speaker 1: much more likely I want to actually finished reading or
Speaker 1: playing or consuming the thing that you get. You're also
Speaker 1: much more likely to sort of go out there and
Speaker 1: talk about it to your friends and sort of proselytize
Speaker 1: on behalf of you. And that's the best type of marketing. Right.
Speaker 1: So people talk a lot about micro influencers or um
Speaker 1: micro proselytizers, and I think, okay, yeah, that's a viable
Speaker 1: approach of strategy. But like for me, so if one
Speaker 1: of my friends who I whose taste like, if they
Speaker 1: tell me to read something watched up there or listen
Speaker 1: to something, I'm much more likely to do it. But
Speaker 1: how do you get those people activated interested? And how
Speaker 1: do you get there? How do you get their opinions early? Right,
Speaker 1: So we have enough these big I p that people
Speaker 1: are coming into our ecosystems. I'd like to find out
Speaker 1: for them what are they looking for in next and
Speaker 1: being that that dialogue so they feel invested in from zero,
Speaker 1: So invest when we can just be It could be
Speaker 1: time spent, it could be conversations, it could be financial.
Speaker 1: We're open to any any and all of those iterations.
Speaker 1: I don't think that there's a silver bullet to solve
Speaker 1: for there. Well, you know you mentioned kickstarter. Is there
Speaker 1: other ways to approach like a crowd equity raise, for
Speaker 1: the company overall or for a particular project. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: we're we're actually looking to do to do something that
Speaker 1: we've we've filed um with the sec UH to sort
Speaker 1: of do a sort of crowd equity ways and so
Speaker 1: we're in that process now. We're waiting for approval to
Speaker 1: go live. We partner with the company called Republic or
Speaker 1: we having sort of a m an opportunity to sort
Speaker 1: of bring more people into the company so they can
Speaker 1: feel like partners. But that's not gonna be the only
Speaker 1: way in which we let people participate. Of course, it's
Speaker 1: a hugely meaningful one, but there's obviously, you know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people that are giant fans that don't
Speaker 1: have the financial resources to invest, and we want to
Speaker 1: make sure that we're servicing all our fans in whatever
Speaker 1: way that they wanted the service. That's really interesting, I
Speaker 1: mean is that gonna is that kind of crad equity
Speaker 1: Ray is going to be focused on a particular piece
Speaker 1: of I P or just the company in general, the
Speaker 1: company in general. You know, we went through those uh,
Speaker 1: we went through our A and B rounds where we
Speaker 1: did sort of you know, more traditional venture and strategic
Speaker 1: investment um. But for us, the goal is to partner
Speaker 1: with our fans on the I P. So we want
Speaker 1: to say, hey, look like, let's partner with our fans, like,
Speaker 1: let's actually do that so they can have a meaningful
Speaker 1: voice in the direction of the company's going on. Does
Speaker 1: that presume, because frankly, I didn't think of sky Bound
Speaker 1: as a brand something that audience knows. But if you're
Speaker 1: taking this approach, obviously I'm wrong. Well, you know there's
Speaker 1: a debate, right whether we're a branded house or house
Speaker 1: of brands, right, I think that's an ongoing struggle or
Speaker 1: ongoing conversation. And you know, for us, I think we're
Speaker 1: both right. I think you know, obviously where the house
Speaker 1: that brought you Walking Toad, where the house that brought
Speaker 1: you Invincible and Impact Winter. But I think that you know,
Speaker 1: we're not necessarily creating the m c U here, but
Speaker 1: we do think how there's thematic through lines that makes
Speaker 1: sense that you're like, oh, I like what they're doing.
Speaker 1: And we've heard from a lot of our fans if
Speaker 1: you like walking to any like invincibly like Inpact Winter,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of connectivity amongst those those fan bases.
Speaker 1: A lot of overlap. So people, I think, more so recently,
Speaker 1: are starting to see that, and ultimately I think, you know,
Speaker 1: I think, and if you look at it right, um,
Speaker 1: I don't know that people have watched Walking Dead on
Speaker 1: TV think of themselves as AMC fence right. And certainly
Speaker 1: when we launched in the era of Madmen and Breaking Bad,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure there was a ton of synergy between
Speaker 1: all three of those shows, although there certainly were plenty
Speaker 1: of people who did watch it, but I don't think
Speaker 1: one was driving the viewership of the other. And I
Speaker 1: think that people who come to the sky Bound and
Speaker 1: see what we're doing tend to stay inside of our ecosystem,
Speaker 1: and so we're trying to sort of build out that
Speaker 1: audience in a much more connected way. When I think
Speaker 1: about sources of capital for the company, I also think
Speaker 1: about the fact that in the past few years, it's
Speaker 1: like every production company in Hollywood is getting their tires
Speaker 1: kicked by investors of some kind. I think the fact
Speaker 1: that O T. T has expanded the demand for content
Speaker 1: has made you know, everything from Hello Sunshine to Lebron
Speaker 1: James spring Hill Company available either for the taking or
Speaker 1: for a big investment surely you're getting approached because you
Speaker 1: guys would would fit right into that model. So is
Speaker 1: that something you're thinking about. You know, Yes, we've been
Speaker 1: approached for We've been approached multiple times a year for
Speaker 1: the last eight to ten years. Right, So i'd be
Speaker 1: a lie I said, we haven't been approached. It's not
Speaker 1: a perfortive outcome. Um, there's certain of those buyers out
Speaker 1: there that I think really get the space, and there's
Speaker 1: a lot of them out there that are just uh
Speaker 1: financial folks that don't necessarily understand what we're trying to build.
Speaker 1: We would much rather partner with our fans, um and
Speaker 1: sort of be in a dialogue where the creative is
Speaker 1: really driving the conversation much more so than sort of
Speaker 1: being completely uh bottom line oriented. I see what's happening,
Speaker 1: you know at one of Brose Discovery when you have
Speaker 1: you're you're completely hold into a P and L and
Speaker 1: balance sheet that's you know, making it really difficult to
Speaker 1: sort of run you know, one of the great creative
Speaker 1: companies there's ever been, you know, with HBO, and I
Speaker 1: look at sort of some of those decisions that are
Speaker 1: going on there and it's really really tough, and I
Speaker 1: feel like that's you can be overly financially engineered, and
Speaker 1: I worry about those potential outcomes. So that's why for us,
Speaker 1: if we can actually partner with our consumers, right, if
Speaker 1: our fans consumers can be our partners, I think that
Speaker 1: really changes the nature and direction of the company. And
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody has done that historically. And again,
Speaker 1: it's part of us where we're not even though TV
Speaker 1: is a giant part of our business and video against
Speaker 1: are joint part of our business. I really believe that
Speaker 1: the focus of what we do is connect the creatives
Speaker 1: with their fans, and we can be that place. I
Speaker 1: think that's it opens up a tremendous alley for us.
Speaker 1: Another manifestation of the streaming age is the in the
Speaker 1: deals that get done between companies like yourselves and streaming services.
Speaker 1: We're seeing obviously the popularity of the cost plus model,
Speaker 1: where you're not necessarily able to hold on to any
Speaker 1: back end because the Netflix is of the world will
Speaker 1: sort of buy that out from the outset. How do
Speaker 1: you feel about that, because that is becoming a very
Speaker 1: controversial subject. It seems like there's a real backlash in
Speaker 1: the production community. Well, I think I think it's a
Speaker 1: problem when you have when you're a content creator and
Speaker 1: your financial incentives aren't the same as the person that's
Speaker 1: distributing your show. Right. So, historically, putting aside whatever controversies
Speaker 1: there might be about networks and the creators, both networks
Speaker 1: and creators wanted as many people to watch their shows
Speaker 1: as possible for the longest possible period of time. Right,
Speaker 1: So there might be an arguments over shows cancer too soon,
Speaker 1: too late, right, like you know, someone spent too much
Speaker 1: too little. Right, there's all those fights that we had
Speaker 1: witnessed for you know that made up the uh, made
Speaker 1: up all the journalism for decades, and you know, at Variety,
Speaker 1: but ultimately CBN as they wanted people to watch their shows,
Speaker 1: and they wanted people to watch their shows for every
Speaker 1: week and watch it for year after year after year
Speaker 1: after year. I don't feel the same right now with
Speaker 1: that with a lot of the streamers because I think
Speaker 1: they're much more interested and people connecting and paying a
Speaker 1: fee and then forgetting about it. Right. So, um, you
Speaker 1: look at something like HBO, which is highly correlated or
Speaker 1: at least historically had been highly correlated around certain shows
Speaker 1: coming up, so you can say, there's a certain people
Speaker 1: that would subscribe and then forget it. And there are
Speaker 1: certain people tune in the Game of Thrones or they
Speaker 1: would tune in for White Lotus or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: and they would subscribe and unsubscribed. But you were really
Speaker 1: sort of tightly correlated around the performance of a couple
Speaker 1: of hit shows. Um, you know, I think you look
Speaker 1: at Netflix and I mean, there's so much going on,
Speaker 1: right and there's so many shows that get canceled after
Speaker 1: a couple of seasons because that's when this season's that
Speaker 1: talents start asking for more money, they're able to renegotiate,
Speaker 1: and that's it gets more expensive. There's no additional revenue
Speaker 1: that comes to Netflix. If you're there for form and
Speaker 1: you in Domer season two, it gets more expensive. There's
Speaker 1: no additional revenue to the person already watching that show, right,
Speaker 1: there's that person is already locked in. Whereas historically, when
Speaker 1: with an advertising model, you were able to drive more
Speaker 1: revenue if you said, hey, look we have Side Elvets
Speaker 1: getting the biggest possible audience in the world. We can
Speaker 1: actually make more money on it now, So it's okay
Speaker 1: for the cost to increase. And I feel like that
Speaker 1: that disconnect is. Ultimately the problem is that as a platform,
Speaker 1: the big streamers are commoditizing producers. And I'll tell you
Speaker 1: this as an artist, I didn't get into this business
Speaker 1: to make a piece of content, right. I got into
Speaker 1: make stories that matter, right. I got into make movies
Speaker 1: and TV shows and books. Think that stories that matter.
Speaker 1: I'm not a piece of content guy, And being reduced
Speaker 1: to a tile, uh can feel really sort of diminutive.
Speaker 1: So yes, Uh, it is a hot button, the hot
Speaker 1: button topic in the creative community. I also want to know,
Speaker 1: you know, now that you've sort of made the transition
Speaker 1: from uh you were you know, had a show at
Speaker 1: a MC, a number of shows at a MC. Now
Speaker 1: you're in with Amazon, would you still do linear old
Speaker 1: school television? Is that you know you're still open to
Speaker 1: parking a show there? Yeah, And look, I think linear
Speaker 1: television the thing about it linear as long as there's
Speaker 1: a streaming behind it, right, I actually think that there
Speaker 1: is something. The other thing I hate is releasing all
Speaker 1: the episodes at once. I hate it. You lose the
Speaker 1: opportunity to have the cultural conversation. So our our big conversation.
Speaker 1: And Amazon was a great partner here was. We said, look,
Speaker 1: we don't want to go all at once on the business,
Speaker 1: so they let us do put out the first three
Speaker 1: and then they went weakly and it changed the nature
Speaker 1: because we were able to sort of build this audience.
Speaker 1: People started talking about it. People that normally wouldn't watch
Speaker 1: the show. We're like, oh, I gotta watch it. I
Speaker 1: need to catch up to be in there. So we
Speaker 1: were able to sort of create these cultural moments, like, look,
Speaker 1: I love dealing with thrones at the Red Wedding. Had
Speaker 1: been binged, I don't think it would have been that
Speaker 1: giint cultural moment um that it was, because you wouldn't
Speaker 1: know where people are, right, So I feel like, yes,
Speaker 1: I think it's incredibly I'm totally supportive of it here
Speaker 1: as long as there's an opportunity to binge and catch up. Well, Alternatively,
Speaker 1: the way you've just answered that question, I wonder would
Speaker 1: you ever do a deal with Netflix where the orthodoxy
Speaker 1: on the binge is pretty strong? You know, Look, I
Speaker 1: would never say never, and I've done I've worked there,
Speaker 1: and they do some things that are really amazingly well,
Speaker 1: But I don't think it's the best. I don't think
Speaker 1: that that's in the best interest is of the creatives.
Speaker 1: I think that's I would argue I don't even think
Speaker 1: it's in their own best interests, but you know they
Speaker 1: certainly know for themselves. So what's next for sky Bound?
Speaker 1: Is there? You know you've mentioned Invincible, You've mentioned Impact Winter.
Speaker 1: Are are there other pieces i P? Because I know
Speaker 1: you've got like two hundred different pieces of I P
Speaker 1: within the sky Bound Empire? What's next? Do you think
Speaker 1: we should keep an eye on coming up the pipeline? Yeah? So, um,
Speaker 1: we have a bunch of things. So, uh, Invincible Season
Speaker 1: two and three is in production right now. We'll be
Speaker 1: coming out. We'll be announcing a really states shortly. Um,
Speaker 1: but we're very excited about what's going on in the
Speaker 1: Invincible universe. Um. We have a show that we're starting
Speaker 1: in South Africa. That's gonna be the first show that
Speaker 1: we're we're funding that we're the studio on that we're
Speaker 1: doing as a partnership with with Freely in the US,
Speaker 1: Leftflix Africa UM and Sony for distribution. So but that
Speaker 1: will be our first show there. It's a really really
Speaker 1: cool sort of y a spy feeling. We're doing the
Speaker 1: show of Encounada called Psychops, which is another animated show
Speaker 1: that's um sort of you know, uh at Files Meet
Speaker 1: south Park, which we're really excited about. It's really fun,
Speaker 1: really sort of cool cutting in these great young creators
Speaker 1: were working with. UM. So those are some of the
Speaker 1: things we're having in the have a few other shows
Speaker 1: that are next year as well. UM. And then one
Speaker 1: of the biggest things we have is we have something
Speaker 1: called the Coastal Coastal Project, a Coastal Protocole, which is
Speaker 1: a video game that we're doing in conjunction with the
Speaker 1: Striking Distance and Craft, and that comes out in about
Speaker 1: three weeks. That's just a gigantic, beautiful sci fi horror
Speaker 1: game that's just honestly the next level and the fan
Speaker 1: reaction so far pretty through the root. So UM, I
Speaker 1: mean there's just a ton going on. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: right now it's sky Bound and I really feel like
Speaker 1: it's never been a better time to be working at Skybone. Well,
Speaker 1: it sounds like you've got a lot brewing there, David.
Speaker 1: Thanks for taking the time to walk us through all
Speaker 1: things sky Bound. Thank you. This has been another episode
Speaker 1: of Strictly Business. Tune in next week for another helping
Speaker 1: of Scintilla in conversation with media movers and shakers, and
Speaker 1: please make sure you subscribe to the podcast to hear
Speaker 1: future episodes. Also leave a review in Apple Podcasts and
Speaker 1: let us know how we're doing