By Andreas Wiseman July 9, 2021 8:21am (Deadline)
EXCLUSIVE: David Steward II’s companies Polarity and Lion Forge Animation, which produced Oscar-winning short Hair Love, have signed with Activist Artists Management.
In the works for Lion Forge are a Hair Love spinoff series (Young Love) for HBO Max; the animated series Heiress with BRON; and Rise Up, Sing Out, executive-produced by Grammy-winning artists Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter and Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, for Disney.
Lion Forge Animation sits within Steward II’s holding company Polarity, which spotlights diversity and new voices. The Polarity portfolio includes Illustrated Syndicate and Magnetic Press, as well as Oni-Lion Forge Publishing Group (the latter is separately represented by WME).
Said David Steward II: “With entertainment being the persuasive culture driver that it is, we’ve made it our mission to showcase diversity in everything we create so that audiences, whether they are watching, reading or experiencing a story in some other manner, are exposed to a more realistic portrayal of our world. To craft content authentically, we empower creators who tend to be underrepresented voices in television, comics, movies, books and gaming. Activist understands this, and their strategic, multi-disciplinary teams will help us execute our game plan and fulfill our mission. Finding a partner like Activist who fully comprehends how these aspects of our business set us apart from others, combined with an ability to align and position our content, is a perfect match.”
“Lion Forge has a deep library of well-crafted multi-cultural content that is primed for film, television and gaming adaptation,” added Greg Suess, Co-Founder of Activist Artists Management, together with Bernie Cahill and Matt Maher. “Our intention is to serve the Polarity team through the creation of scalable partnerships with top tier partners that accelerate Polarity and Lion Forge’s already impressive growth.”
Jon Kanak, who runs Film & Television for Activist, and Andrew Ward, Managing Director of the Activist Family Office Practice will also serve on the team repping Steward’s companies.
Activist reps actors including Jaime Murray, Ken Watanabe and David Alan Grier.