LAMINA1

Welcome to the outskirts. A small glimpse into a very big world. From @nealstephenson, @WetaWorkshop and the team at @Lamina1official:

60,000 people own a piece of Legion M - a fan-owned film studio that's now produced work with Eli Roth. They raised $25m direct from their community. Fans with equity stakes, not just merch.

7 years. Creator-owned IP. Golden Horse Award. GKIDS just picked up Another World for North American distribution - and Point Five Creations still owns the characters. The slow road to independence just paid off.

The Rip hit 112M views. Artists Equity just signed a Netflix first-look deal. This is what happens when you own the IP on a hit. Not just royalties. A seat at the table.

@Monssef13735 @toonstarhq just go to hub.lamina1.com - the main www. is down right now while we improve/revamp it!

@Lamina1official @toonstarhq @Lamina1official where is the wallet hub gone??

The team @toonstarhq keeps stacking wins: Parker James' "StEvEn & Parker" sits at 3.4M subs and 10B lifetime views. Their weekly viewership is 13x that of The Simpson's. The next generation of animators: Smaller teams. Creator-led IP. Audience-native distribution.

It's no secret that independent film distribution is broken. A new indie distributor, Subtext, is launching with a mission to build "long-term value for filmmakers" - not just visibility. Indie filmmakers will benefit from their data analytics, consumer insights and cultural strategy.

At SXSW this year: industry panelists declared "The Collapse of the Sundance-to-Streaming Dream". They say 99% of creators no longer have the chance to get a distribution deal from Sundance or SXSW And instead need to look at a newly coined 50/50 rule: spend half your money on filming, half on marketing. New distribution models are in high demand in Hollywood.

In the last year, a wave of new film distribution companies have launched - Row K, Black Bear, Watermelon Pictures, Subtext, Obscured Releasing. Why? Because the major studios stopped buying mid-budget films and someone had to fill the gap. New infrastructure is being built. Quietly, but quickly.

Cannes is launching its first-ever Creator Economy Summit this May. The world's most traditional film market is now building programming around creator IP, digital-first talent, and community-driven distribution. The old guard isn't ignoring this shift anymore. They're trying to catch up.

90+ films premiered at Sundance this year. Only about 12 had distribution deals. The old model- make a film, premiere at a festival, wait for a buyer- is effectively dead for 99% of filmmakers. The ones winning now? They're treating distribution as part of production, not an afterthought.

Wake up babe, the Backrooms trailer dropped What's amazing, is that A24 actually hired a 19 year old YouTuber, Kane Parsons, for his directorial debut on this movie- and purchased the rights to Parsons' specific take on the public domain Backroom's concept. This is the power of the age of creators, and aligns perfectly with Lamina1's vision for empowering more creators to become funding / acquisition ready with their own unique IP.

Wall Street spent decades ignoring film. Now smart money is quietly moving into story as an asset class. But when capital buys into developing IP, who actually owns the story?👇 The global content economy now exceeds $100 billion annually. Film revenues behave differently from traditional markets - people still watch movies in recessions, successful IP generates cash for decades, and streaming platforms created something Hollywood had never seen before: predictable buyers. So institutional capital started moving in. Then the JOBS Act opened equity crowdfunding to retail investors. Angel Studios used it and one project returned 296% to participating investors. Film financing was no longer just for studios and billionaires. Here's the part that gets glossed over: capital moving into film rights means someone is buying ownership of what creators build. The question is whether that ownership stays with the people who made it or gets absorbed into another fund, another platform, another intermediary that never touched the work. The smart money is moving into story rights. Creators should already be there, not watching from the outside. That's the infrastructure LAMINA1 is building. 🔵 Via Nina Orm: creativitymeetscapital.substack.com/p/film-as-an-a…

And from out of the tomb, we found our Gloom. Meet the voice of Owen B. Gloom - in the studio, in character, all in. Owen Nowhere - WeGhostedMedia × LAMINA1.

Finding the voice of Owen B. Gloom. Four finalists. Real kids. Real performances. Who did we choose? Thread 👇

We're hosting a Creator Workshop tomorrow in our Discord. Topic: AI Agents in Creative Workflows 📅 Tuesday, March 24 · 2:30 PM EST Live demos, real workflows, open Q&A. Come through.🙌