Legendary Entertainment — the company who along with Warner Bros. is behind Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy — announced that it has acquired Nerdist Industries. The timing of the deal is perfect — with the announcement coming just days before Comic Con.
Since 2008, the Nerdist brand has grown from a podcast to a multi-platform of pop culture. Founder Chris Hardwick was joined by current CEO Peter Levin in 2011, and the company is now comprised of website, YouTube channel, podcast network, e-newsletter, television footprint and live events.
Collectively, Nerdist Industries aggregates 15 million monthly viewers, readers and listeners.
Legendary Entertainment’s Chairman and CEO Thomas Tull was an early investor to Nerdist.
“We’ve been impressed with how Chris and Peter have harnessed the Nerdist platform to create and deliver high-quality, relevant content, and then develop one-on-one relationships with the fans we see as Legendary’s core psychographic,” said Tull.
Tuesday’s acquisition was announced by Legendary Entertainment COO Tim Connors, to whom Hardwick and Levin will report.
According to Connors, Legendary Entertainment will help Nerdist more aggressively “broaden their reach as an autonomous editorial brand, as well as pursue some exciting new ideas.”
Hardwick and Levin will continue in their current roles within Nerdist. However, the two will also take on the roles of Co-Presidents of Legendary’s digital business — Hardwick will serve as Co-President of digital content and Levin will be Co-President of digital strategy.
“The fact that we can retain the independent nature of the brand while working closely with the team at Legendary is an exciting next step in the evolution of the Nerdist Industries brand,” said Levin.
They will work closely with Legendary’s executive management team on event management and comics-related operations — which is no surprise, considering the Nerdist team is currently (and literally) sweating their way to Comic Con as part of their long-awaited Course of the Force, with lightsabers in hand.
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