Capturing the right opportunities – at the right time – in the fast-paced media and entertainment space requires a combination of foresight, intuition, and business savvy. It also takes a legal partner with the perception and proficiency needed to carefully evaluate, structure, negotiate and close critical deals.
For more than 50 years, Pryor Cashman’s Media + Entertainment Transactions and Financing Practice has been instrumental in scores of deals that have shaped the industry. Experienced in both traditional and new media platforms, our attorneys apply cross-disciplinary legal skills and decades of industry insights to craft and close complex transactions that meet our clients’ short- and long-term strategic goals.
What We Do
Our media and entertainment transactions and financing attorneys provide crucial guidance at key points in projects that range from feature films and documentaries to television and streaming entertainment. We are thought leaders in the space, offering unique insights on the current challenges in domestic and international entertainment production during the COVID-19 pandemic, and have assembled a comprehensive resource library for our community.
We represent many industry players, including:
| • Studios • Streaming and content providers • Musicians, composers, and record companies • Music publishers • Film and television production companies • Film distributors | • Equity investors, including high net worth individuals • Hedge funds • Financial institutions • Completion guarantors • Executives, directors, and producers • Writers, actors, and other talent |
Acting as corporate counsel, our attorneys identify creative financing solutions, including domestic and foreign tax incentives that structure tax-efficient transactions. Working closely with our clients, we regularly review and create business plans that provide a strategic legal and operational framework for their future.
Our work with motion picture and theater unions and guilds includes negotiating settlements and other complex agreements concerning residual payment obligations. In fact, we recently represented “Hamilton” actors in a labor and employment deal that brought the original cast members, all of whom belong to Actors’ Equity Association, a share of the smash musical’s profits. We also advise on completion bonds, errors and omissions insurance, labor-management relations, and other myriad legal issues that arise during the course of production.
Representing talent, we review, negotiate, and draft agreements involving actors, entertainers, writers, producers, and directors. Serving as a trusted business partner to these individuals, we represent their best interests in licensing transactions and other commercial ventures.
Trend-Setting Transactions
Taking the lead in deals valued at more than $1 billion, our attorneys negotiate media and entertainment acquisitions that open new development, production, and distribution avenues for our clients. We are known for orchestrating lucrative marketing collaborations for companies and celebrities, assisting in the sales and due diligence of music rights and catalogs, and advancing the efforts of music publishers to directly license content for public performance online. Our proactive and actionable advice helps clients leverage and optimize their entertainment assets and avoid potential pitfalls.
Financings That Move Projects Forward
Pryor Cashman attorneys craft intricate financing arrangements for both borrowers and investors and structure funding for individual and slate projects originating in the U.S. and abroad.
We have orchestrated the sale of numerous domestic and international motion pictures and maintain extensive contacts in the foreign sales market that enable us to complete complex foreign pre-sales financings. Our success in this area includes several cross-border deals that have attracted participation from foreign public companies and private equity shops alike.
In the financing arena, our experience includes:
• Senior and mezzanine financing
• Private placement of debt and equity
• Receivables- and asset-based lines of credit and term credit facilities
• Gap financing
• Co-financings and co-production financings
• Investment deals with consortium funding
• P&A (print and advertising) funding
• Multi-distributor split-rights deals
• Negative pickup financing
We also draw upon the expertise of our award-winning M+E Litigation Practice when significant conflict arises. Whether through international arbitration pertaining to distribution rights or a full-fledged copyright or contract litigation, we will continue to innovate legal territory as new devices, media, platforms, and channels emerge.
Whether seeking to accelerate the momentum of a project or looking to secure the right terms for an investment, Pryor Cashman’s media and entertainment experience add value, creativity, and efficiency to every engagement.
