Felicia Day’s Geek & Sundry Acquired by Legendary Entertainment
Legendary Entertainment, the media company behind such films as Pacific Rim, Godzilla, and of course Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies, recently acquired Felicia Day’s YouTube show Geek & Sundry to be part of its digital division.
This move makes sense, as Legendary Entertainment is known for producing movies that are popular within the geek demographic and also purchased multimedia company Nerdist Industries in 2012. Nerdist has since then expanded into a premium content YouTube channel as well as a news division, branching out from its humble beginnings as a podcast run by Chris Hardwick. If the success of Nerdist Industries is anything to go by, then Geek & Sundry will also benefit from the increased resources that Legendary Entertainment will provide.
Changes to the YouTube Channel
In the meantime, however, Felicia Day’s YouTube channel has already made a name for itself without the need of any outside assistance. Geek & Sundry was launched by Felicia Day, Kim Evey, and Sheri Bryant in 2012 as part of YouTube’s Original Channel Initiative, a 100 million dollar program funded by Google to bring original content onto the digital sharing website. Other channels established include SourceFed, CrashCourse, and The Multiverse. The Geek & Sundry YouTube channel hosts multiple shows, including Tabletop, in which guests play various tabletop games with Wil Wheaton; Spellslingers, a series of Magic: the Gathering hosted by e-sports commentator Sean Plott; and Co-Optitude, in which Felicia and her brother Ryan Day play retro videogames. These various shows often feature celebrity guests, and the channel recently reached over one million subscribers.
In a video last week, Felicia Day celebrated her one million subscribers and officially announced Geek & Sundry’s acquisition by Legendary Pictures, saying that this partnership will give the channel the “opportunity to make bigger shows, be more creative, more inventive.” For those who are worried that this change might take Geek & Sundry away from the free-to-all digital platform of YouTube, you can rest assured that the channel will continue to make videos that are free for everyone to watch. We all love such notable geeks as Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day, so anything that gives their shows more resources to expand and continue can only be a positive thing. This partnership with Legendary Entertainment will give Geek & Sundry funding it can use to create exciting new content, and opens up a realm of possibility for what they can accomplish in the future.
The Future of Media Industries
Legendary Entertainment’s effort to expand their brand beyond traditional media platforms, embracing digital entertainment as an influential platform in its own right, says much about the future of media industries. With the ever-increasing success of the YouTube domain and the tendency for movies and shows to be viewed on digital platforms, lines are beginning to blur between internet and television content. Mainstream media companies like Legendary Entertainment are realizing the value of appealing to the internet demographic, and by funding newcomers to digital entertainment like Geek & Sundry they provide those companies with the resources to expand. It seems likely that we can count on seeing similar partnerships in the future, and no doubt Geek & Sundry will have some exciting surprises in store for us as a result of this news.