Legion M Made Its Biggest Splash Yet at San Diego Comic-Con
(And We’re Taking You Back to All the Action)!
Legion M fans gather for the exclusive Mandy clip.
It’s Summertime! School’s out, it’s hot, and we’re always looking for fun things to do. Luckily, for Legion M and our amazing community, summertime is synonymous with San Diego Comic-Con, which brings together fans and the entertainment industry’s biggest names in film, television, digital and gaming to preview the hottest new releases! With four jam-packed days of incredible panels, previews, exhibits, cosplay, parties and experiential activations, we made San Diego our home away from home over the SDCC weekend. Because SDCC has become a tentpole event for Legion M, we wanted to really blow it out this year. Mission accomplished! SDCC 2018 was the Legion’s biggest and best yet, and we couldn’t be more excited to share some amazing Con highlights, so let’s go!
The epicenter of our SDCC activation was the Legion M Fan Lounge at Harbor House Restaurant, a breezy oasis just blocks away from the chaos of the convention center on San Diego Harbor. We partnered with our amazing friends at Skybound Entertainment—the creators of The Walking Dead comic series—and completely transformed our space into “Legion M Headquarters,” where the Legion had exclusive access to meet up and chill out. As members mixed and mingled with Hollywood creators and producers (yes, that is the producer of Lord of the Rings (!!!) you just had a conversation with) and celebrities like the one-and-only Michael Rooker (!!!) from “The Walking Dead” and Guardians of the Galaxy, they enjoyed seeing Legion M signage and free swag, delicious popcorn from our friends at Popcorn Buddha and movie theater candy from the TCL Chinese Theatre Hollywood, along with posters from our various projects like Colossal, Bad Samaritan, and Mandy. We also had photographs and posters from Legion M’s Stan Lee Celebration in 2017 as a reminder of how far we’ve come in just two short years! For three days, the Legion M Lounge welcomed thousands of SDCC attendees, showcasing what makes Legion M such an amazing fan community and how we are shaking up Hollywood!
Legion M Execs during at SDCC Panel: How Fandom Is Changing Hollywood
We kicked off SDCC proper in star-studded fashion with a Legion M panel inside the convention center. Paul, Jeff, a toy chainsaw-wielding Terri Lubaroff (which she strategically used to “cut” off folks for speaking too long. Helloooo, Mandy chainsaw battles!) and David (meticulously cosplaying as Nicolas Cage’s “Red” from Mandy) led the panel and discussed how Legion M and the power of fandom is changing the way entertainment is made in Hollywood. Then they made a couple of huge reveals that garnered big applause from the crowd. First, producer Elijah Wood from our friends at SpectreVision introduced—via video—a SDCC-exclusive scene from Mandy!
The chilling four-minute clip proved why Mandy, a heavy metal revenge fantasy starring Cage and directed by visionary Panos Cosmatos (Beyond the Black Rainbow), is one of the most highly anticipated films of the year (with a 97% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes!). Before seeing our project in theaters on September 14, check out Mandy’s trailer here and listen to "Children Of The New Dawn" from the film’s soundtrack—scored by the late Jóhann Jóhannsson (The Theory of Everything, Sicario)—which Legion M proudly invested in.
"The Outpost" stars Jake Stormoen and Jessica Green
After mesmerizing the crowd with Mandy, the Legion warmly welcomed two of the stars from the brand-new CW series “The Outpost.” Series lead Jessica Green who plays Talon and Jake Stormoen—also a founding member of Legion M—who plays Captain Garret Spears, discussed the new series and the importance of fan support to debut a series successfully and ensure there are future seasons to come. “The Outpost,” from our newest advisory board member Dean Devlin’s Electric Entertainment, follows Talon, the lone survivor of the Blackbloods, as she sets off to track her family's killers. While on her journey, Talon discovers her supernatural powers, which she must learn to harness. Legion M partnered with Dean Devlin and Electric Entertainment on May's psychological thriller Bad Samaritan starring David Tennant. We were thrilled to support Dean’s new series and have Jessica and Jake join the panel and answer questions from the audience!
After Legion M’s panel, Jessica, Jake and Anand Desai-Barochia (Janzo) from “The Outpost” stopped by the Legion M Lounge for a very special meet and greet that was supposed to be an hour, but lasted all afternoon! The trio chatted with fans, posed for photos, and signed Comic-Con exclusive posters, spending time getting to know Legion M’s community. Jessica even had a little fun with The Legion!
Talon from "The Outpost" vs Red from Mandy
Don't mess with our "Fearless Leader" Clare!
Another awesome highlight from the Legion M lounge was the Mandy Takeover. The lounge dedicated a full afternoon to Mandy, and guests were able to experience our Comic-Con exclusive scene, the film’s trailer, and check out actual props and stills from the film, including the most epic weapon ever created, Red’s “The Beast!” Fans enjoyed “Cheddar Goblin” mac and cheese and left the lounge with limited-edition “Red” and Mandy tattoos. The Mandy Takeover at the Legion M Fan Lounge was the perfect celebration for one of our biggest projects to date and we absolutely “killed” it!
The Legion M Lounge hosted events every day throughout SDCC. We partnered with MGM for an exclusive Stargate fan meet up party ahead of a special sunset screening of Stargate Origins: Catherine aboard the iconic USS Midway docked in San Diego Harbor. We also had the privilege of hosting some of the creators of our TV series in development for meet and greets with Legion M members. Co-creator of our adult animated comedy “Airship Cowboys” Adam Beason spent the entire day at the lounge answering questions and hanging out with whoever wanted to chat. “Evermor” creators Perry Covington, Erik Figi and steampunk-attired cosplay Tya Kottler also hosted a meet and greet, gave away free swag, did a red carpet interview, gifted Legion M with two amazing metal artwork sculptures from Dr. Evermor’s Art Park (upon which Evermor is based) to help sell the series! Special thanks to Perry and Erik, who also helped load our lounge in and out with pure muscle and military can-do! We’re very excited about our TV series in development and are so glad our creators had a chance to see how amazing our larger Legion M community is! The Fan Lounge also hosted the final stop on the city-wide Buffy the Vampire Slayer Treasure Hunt, where over 3,000 “slayers” came by the lounge! A fun “high”-light from the weekend was that Legion M banner that flew above downtown San Diego, encouraging hundreds of thousands of Comic-Con attendees to look up and join Legion M, including our friend Kevin Smith, who saw it from the IMDb party boat in the harbor!
Legion M’s presence didn’t stop at the Legion M Lounge, however. SDCC is the perfect place to share our expertise in the entertainment and comic book industries and to do business. Terri spoke on the SDCC panel Comic Book Law School, and David spoke on the SDCC panel Cospositive, about how cosplay embraces all shapes and sizes. The executive team also took back-to-back meetings with producers, financiers, writers and artists all weekend. Terri Lubaroff was particularly pleased that her call for creators to come to the lounge to introduce themselves (she announced this at our last Shindig) worked, and she was able to meet several new creatives with whom we’re now discussing working with! We love that Legion M affords people opportunities to connect directly with us and are so happy to meet the talented members of our community!
Before signing off, we asked David Baxter to share his unique experience at San Diego Comic-Con:
As head of development for Legion M, my daily job is to identify possible projects for Legion M to get behind. However, at Comic-Cons my job extends beyond this into the world of evangelism for our company and one of the ways I do this is through cosplay. I’ve been involved in the world of cosplay since before it had a name. I was one of the first people in Southern California to join the 501st with a movie-accurate Darth Vader costume, and since I’m 6’8”, I was able to really pull off everyone’s favorite Sith Lord. In fact, I was the official Darth Vader for the premiere of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones at the TCL Chinese Theatre.
Since then, I’ve done cosplay of many characters including: Gandalf, Dumbledore, Hagrid, Fezik, Hellboy, and The Hound from Game of Thrones. This year for SDCC I added two new cosplays: Negan from The Walking Dead and Red from our newest film Mandy that stars Nicolas Cage. I was able to attend our Legion M panel in full Red costume complete with chainsaw to get the fans excited about our upcoming release and then I went back to our lounge to pose for pictures with fans and with the cast of “The Outpost,” a new fantasy drama on The CW, who participated in a meet and greet and signing in the Legion M Fan Lounge.
Cosplay has been a unique way for me to help spread the word about Legion M and engage with some of the most die-hard fans in our community. I really do have a dream job!
Our San Diego Comic-Con activation would not have been such a huge success if it weren’t for the amazing help and dedication from the Legion. As always, Legion M members came out and supported their company in an EPIC way! Led by our fearless special events leader Clare Bateman-King, it was an absolute team effort coordinating our presence in San Diego leading up to and during Comic-Con weekend. To ensure we don’t forget anyone by name, we want to collectively thank EVERYONE who rolled up their sleeves and helped. We know who you are and we always appreciate your passionate support for Legion M! San Diego Comic-Con has quickly become a favorite destination for Legion M and we couldn’t be happier and thankful for our community who helped make the Legion M Fan Lounge at SDCC such a huge success. The power of fandom is real, and we’re proving it all the time!
SDCC 2018 Gallery
