Hey there Guys, John here.
Major news to share, Are you sitting down? Ok good.
First the BAD news. The deal with ComingSoon has fallen through. The Movie Blog isn’t going anywhere! I (John) will not be leaving to run the upcoming SciFiMission.Com
Why is that? Here are the basics:
1) We had come to an agreement in principle for us to shut down The Movie Blog and for me to become the Managing Editor of SciFiMission.Com
2) We publicly made the announcement since we had an agreement
3) As we were getting ready to sign the deal, I discovered the deal had been fundamentally changed from what we had previously discussed. This change wasn’t meant as a deception by ComingSoon at all, but rather resulted from miscommunication between the parties on the other side.
4) In a flurry of activity the deal was scrapped and we started to try to quickly re-negotiate the deal.
5) By the end, I no longer felt the deal was right for me or The Movie Blog, and so Thursday I informed ComingSoon that I was no longer interested and walked away from the negotiations.
A few things should be said here about ComingSoon.Net and their president Mirko. This is a quality organization and a quality guy. They acted in good faith at all times and were a pleasure to deal with. As I mentioned, them changing the deal we had originally agreed to was not a result of them trying to “pull a fast one”, but rather a result of a simple misunderstanding between the different parties on their side. I have nothing but positive things to say about Mirko and ComingSoon. They are the very best movie news site on the web and I look forward to seeing what they going to do with SciFiMission.Com in the near future. All hail ComingSoon.Net!
Ok, now the good news. No, THE GREAT NEWS!
When I was originally asked why I was going to shut down “The Movie Blog” my answer was really a simple one:
“About 4 or 5 months ago I realized that I’ve taken The Movie Blog as far as it can go with the resources available to me. There are new ideas I have, things I’d like to do, but I just don’t have the resources to take it to the next level. I can’t do it by myself, and I can’t afford to get other people on board (which is why Doug Nagy doesn’t work for the site anymore), and I can’t afford to do the things I feel I would need to do to take TMB to the next step”
The last 36+ hours have been CRAZY! When I first hinted that I may be leaving The Movie Blog, another company let me know they would be interested in buying The Movie Blog. After I stopped talks with ComingSoon, I asked this company to send me something in writing to look at. They sent me something, and I LOVED it. The negotiating and discussion have pretty much been non-stop over this time period.
This company is NOT a studio nor an entity that would pose a conflict of interest.
So what does all this mean?
1) The Movie Blog is here to stay!
2) I have sold The Movie Blog to this company, but I’m not going anywhere! They have hired me to stay on (with a multi-year contract) WITH FULL CREATIVE CONTROL as the Managing Editor of The Movie Blog.
3) Hide your daughters… DOUG NAGY IS BACK. Doug now rejoins The Movie Blog on a full time basis (also with a multi-year contract). The internet’s funniest “ranter” is back in the fold.
4) You’ll be hearing more from Serena and Rodney
5) The Uncut Podcast continues… except with a couple of new twists that all these new resources are affording us
So on Monday, Doug and I are being flown out to San Francisco for a couple of days to sign the papers, do a couple of meetings, and just have some fun. The Movie Blog then goes back into FULL SWING this coming Thursday.
Once again, I just can’t say enough good things about ComingSoon and Mirko. I so appreciate that they wanted me for their new venture and I continue to be a massive fan and look forward to seeing what they do with SciFiMission.
On a personal note, I can’t thank all you guys enough for hanging in there with us during this roller coaster ride. In this process I received over 1000 emails and comments from the community (you guys) and I can’t even begin to tell you how much each and every one of them has meant to me.
So enough with this Soap Opera. Back to the business of being a movie blog (only now much better funded… we can get much higher quality hookers now. Darren and Bruxy obviously won’t partake in the high quality hookers…. they’ll be too busy snorting all the free blow). Cheers!
