Lionsgate announced Monday that it is forming a joint venture with Steven Paul's SP Media, in which Paul's company makes a capital investment and gets its independent features distributed by the studio, according to Deadline. The deal lands one week after Legendary sent Lionsgate a takeover offer. Paul is a special advisor to Donald Trump's Hollywood envoy Jon Voight and has worked with federal lawmakers on a U.S. film tax credit.
Name the mechanism: the ear. Paul is a special advisor to Jon Voight, the man who handles Hollywood for the president, and he spent the last year working with lawmakers on a federal film tax credit. Now his company is buying into a studio. That is not a producer's track record. That is a Rolodex with a distribution deal stapled to it.
The track record is the funniest part: "Baby Geniuses," "Ghost Rider," "Ghost in the Shell," "Rambo: Last Blood." The man produced all four, which is the movie equivalent of a chef who made one good risotto and then opened a gas station sub shop. In 2024 he led the $2.25 billion bid for Paramount's voting stock and lost to David Ellison's money. Now, one week after a takeover offer lands on Lionsgate's desk, he is buying a stake in the studio. If the takeover happens, he will be co-financing the new owner's studio. Either way, Paul wins. The movies are the side dish.
The Lionsgate release calls him "a savvy and experienced entrepreneur" and mentions a "longstanding relationship." Read it again. Every word is a business card. When a studio CEO describes an investor as "savvy" and "longstanding," it means "he knows people in the White House, and we would rather not find out what happens when we say no."
YOUR TURN: Does the ear pay the residuals in 2026, or is it still the script?
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