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Onetime 'fanboy' emerges as H'wood moneyman
By Robert Marich
Feb. 27, 2009 – A onetime comic book “fanboy” is now one of Hollywood’s biggest moneymen who uses his personal gut reaction to decide what movies to fund when they are in early stages of creation. The Wall Street Journal profiles the grown-up fanboy Thomas Tull, who is a financier aligned with Warner Bros. Tull leads Legendary Pictures, which manages a fund of private equity and debt with hundreds of millions of dollars and a 25-picture co-production deal with Warner Bros.
The WSJ profile suggests that Tull, 38, is in the first of the generation of video game geeks of youth who today have risen to positions of power in today’s film industry. He has channeled investment in upcoming Watchmen, and previously Sparta epic 300 and The Dark Night, which is the second highest grossing film of all time. Legendary also invested in clinkers Ant Bully, Lady in the Water, and Superman Returns.
Notes the article by Jamin Brophy-Warren, “Legendary’s luck started to turn around when director Zack Snyder showed up at Mr. Tull’s office with an idea to make Frank Miller’s graphic novel 300, violent historical fiction about the last stand of a band of Spartans against Persian invaders. Mr. Snyder had pitched the idea to a dozen studios, but executives had told him that ‘sword-and-sandal’ flicks were passé -- or that they had similar projects in the pipeline. Mr. Tull, a fan of Mr. Miller’s comics, signed on immediately. The film went on to have one of the biggest openings of 2007, grossing nearly $500 million world-wide. ‘I think [Mr. Tull] understands whether it'll make money, because he looks at it as a fan,’ says Mr. Snyder.”
The article also addresses the mentality of fanboys, who are young aficionados of edgy comic book, fantasy and sci-fi popular culture literature. A characterisitic is demanding tastes for the clever, the ground-breaking and the unusual.Tull uses his fanboy gut as a barometer of what the audience wants, which is a marketing function.
“Many of the same kind of fans that once flocked to Star Wars will be waiting on opening day for Watchmen. Typically young and male (although growing numbers of females have joined their ranks), the fanboy set is omnivorous -- consuming comics, TV, film and videogames. It's a notoriously fickle group -- movies such as The Spirit have bombed when they failed to live up to fanboy expectations. ‘This is my group,’ says Mr. Tull. ‘They like stuff I like.’”
Institutional investors poured $12 billion into Hollywood film slate funds such as Legendary during the mid decade when the stock market was high. With recession, investors have cooled to these funds, though existing vehicles such as Legendary do have money to deployed.
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Legendary Pictures co-financed The Dark Knight