For nearly two decades, WatchMojo has been known as a digital-first media company that understood audiences before “audience-first” became a buzzword. But from the beginning, WatchMojo was never just a YouTube company. It was a studio—one that happened to distribute natively on emerging platforms rather than through traditional gatekeepers.
Today, we are formally relaunching WatchMojo Studios.
This relaunch reflects a convergence of three realities:
- a global demand for premium, scalable, culturally resonant content;
- a financing environment that rewards capital efficiency over brute force spending; and
- WatchMojo’s unique position as both a producer and a global distributor.
WatchMojo Studios is initially capitalized with $10 million in equity, deployed not as dollar-for-dollar production spend, but as anchor capital. As is standard across film and television, that equity unlocks layered financing through sales-based funding against future revenues, tax credits, and local production incentives. In effect, this allows every dollar of equity to control multiple dollars of production budget, resulting in an effective production capacity of $25–$40 million (100-200X WatchMojo’s seed capital, which returned 360× on capital and a 52% IRR over 14 years when you did our 2020 deal with our investors), depending on jurisdiction and project mix. As per the timeline and roll-out, that depends on which projects are match-made first, then packaged, then it’s sequencing it over the next few years/decade.
All of my projects sit at the intersection of Wall Street, Madison Avenue, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood. The model had been in front of me for years—the difference is that the stars have now aligned.
Last year, after engaging an investment bank to manage inbound corporate development interest, it became clear there was strong appetite to fund more ambitious, larger-scale projects. As I explored the potential return of the Expos and Major League Baseball to Montreal, that interest only accelerated. More investors began to recognize a simple truth: storytelling instinct, programming taste, and business judgment rarely coexist. Once this initiative was shared, the approach clicked.
This is just the tip of the iceberg.
Between deep pools of institutional capital, strategic partners with balance sheets to deploy, and marketing clients—many from the entertainment industry—already embedded in WatchMojo’s ecosystem to promote their IP, the potential capital capacity is effectively boundaryless.
The only real constraint is mindset.
The old way of doing things is neither efficient nor particularly effective—and it isn’t coming back. Candor is part of that evolution. If that’s uncomfortable, this may not be the right moment. But for those ready to build what comes next, the opportunity is very real.
I will break down the model further in a future post, but it’s based on what I call the Battleship model (or more technically the Matrix Development, Financing, Production, Distribution model—no acronym would work here, but Battleship captures it well).
Canada remains our foundation, but WatchMojo is a global company—and increasingly, governments outside Canada are approaching us to produce content locally in their jurisdictions. They see what audiences already know: WatchMojo content travels.
After bootstrapping the company for its first six years, we grew rapidly to become one of the more profitable businesses in our peer group. Following the sale of a 25% minority stake to a New York–based private equity firm, we’ve continued to receive significant inbound interest from financiers. But as anyone building a digital brand in the 21st century, capital alone is rarely the solution.
Online success is driven less by funding and more by authenticity, comparative advantage, patience, persistence, and relentless iteration—tinkering until you find true product–market fit, or just as often, platform–format fit. When those forces finally collide, that’s when real leverage appears. That’s the logic behind Battleship.
What follows is our initial WM Studios slate—projects I’ve been developing, in some cases, for more than two decades. WM Studios originally set out to showcase the work of other creatives. But in 2026, with Hollywood structurally weakened, YouTube now ground zero for media and entertainment, and multiple strategic forces finally aligned, it made sense to channel my own creative energy more directly and efficiently.
At launch, WM Studios will focus on these projects, with the intent to partner with a co-creator on each—whether a writer, screenwriter, director, or showrunner—while also attaching additional creative talent, as well as business and corporate partners, on a per-project basis.
To some, this slate may feel ambitious. But ambition, when paired with amplification and network effects, often brings clarity rather than chaos. This is not an anti-Hollywood stance; it’s a blueprint for how Hollywood must evolve to survive and reach new peaks—just as AVOD and FAST have yet to fully realize their potential.
I’ve already begun attaching creatives to several projects. If you see something here that resonates and you want to explore partnering, reach out to me directly. I’ve previously been represented by WME and ICM (pre-CAA acquisition) and am happy to connect “your people” to mine if that’s your preference. But it’s 2026—direct conversations (Linkedin / X / or simply: ash at watchmojo com, I’m Gen X after all!) work just fine. We’ll figure out next steps together.
Oh, you wanna hear the demo and proof of concept to Tantrums (I have reached out to Moein for his blessing and the other 10+ artists who I hope will want to contribute, after their initial confusion).
Here’s the original Tannâz. I have about 20 songs translated… and will likely have 100 in a year, so no sense in sitting on it.
More to come, but now progressing rapidly on this, looking to match-make each project with the right creative partner… which will then allow me to more swiftly package and finalize the funding and distribution model.
LFG.
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