Ryan Reynolds’ Maximum Effort Productions Strikes First-Look Unscripted Deal With FuboTV
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Ryan Reynolds’ Maximum Effort Productions has signed a multiyear first-look deal for unscripted content with the live sports streamer FuboTV, the companies said Monday.
Maximum Effort, which maintains its first-look deal with Paramount Pictures, will also launch a linear channel on FuboTV called the Maximum Effort Network, over which the production company will maintain creative control. FuboTV will oversee ad sales for the channel.
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The two companies have not yet announced a slate of shows as part of the pact, but Maximum Effort (Deadpool, Free Guy, The Adam Project) is co-producing an upcoming sports docuseries, Welcome to Wrexham, for FX Networks that follows Reynolds’ and Rob McElhenney’s ownership of Wrexham A.F.C., a Welsh football club, and the duo’s attempt to revitalize the team, despite having no past experience managing a team before.
Soccer may likely be the thread behind the FuboTV-Maximum Effort partnership, as the streamer this year picked up the exclusive Canadian broadcast rights to the Premier League through the 2024-2025 season, though Wrexham competes in the National League.
As part of the deal, Maximum Effort Productions — which is separate from Reynolds’ marketing agency that was acquired by MNTN last year — will also enter an equity agreement with FuboTV that will encompass stock priced higher than Fubo’s trading price, as of Monday, according to FuboTV CEO David Gandler.
FuboTV has about 1.3 million subscribers, 947,000 of which are located in North America, according to the company’s second quarterly earnings. The company brought in $221.9 million in revenue, 21.7 million of which came from advertising, but swung to a $116.3 million net loss during the quarter.
Ahead of its earnings, the company laid off an undisclosed number of staff in the U.S. as it takes a “conservative approach to growth,” a FuboTV spokesperson told Insider on Aug. 2.
In an Aug. 4 letter to shareholders, Gandler and Edgar Bronfman Jr., FuboTV’s executive chairman, said the company was focused on adding more free ad-supported TV channels to the streamer, with the goal of offering 100 FAST channels by the end of the year.
“FuboTV has taken a fresh approach to developing and delivering content in the digital age and the entire team is passionate about thinking differently and taking chances,” Reynolds, who co-founded Maximum Effort with George Dewey in 2018, said in a statement. “I genuinely can’t believe Maximum Effort gets to program our own network. I am beyond excited and grateful to Fubo.”
