Critical Role Productions
Critical Role Productions, LLC is a multimedia production company incorporated in 2015 by the members of the creator-owned streaming show Critical Role. The first two shows from the company, Critical Role and Talks Machina, originally premiered on Geek & Sundry. The company moved to their own studio space in 2018, and began putting out new shows on their own Twitch and YouTube channels. A split from Legendary Digital Networks was completed in early 2019, at which point Critical Role Productions took over production responsibility and since then has continued to launch new shows independently. Critical Role Productions uses several trade names for various forms of media production such as the gaming imprint Darrington Press, the record label Scanlan Shorthalt Music, and the film and television production banner Metapigeon. They also launched a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, Critical Role Foundation, in 2020 to manage various charity projects by the company. In 2023, Critical Role Productions signed a film and television first-look deal with Amazon Studios. History Geek & Sundry era (2015–19) Critical Role Productions was founded by the members of the creator-owned D&D streaming show Critical Role in 2015. The group had originally begun playing at home in 2012. Felicia Day approached the group about playing it in a live-streamed format for Geek & Sundry, after hearing about the group's private tabletop role-playing game from Ashley Johnson. In order to streamline gameplay for the show, the game's characters were converted from Pathfinder to Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition before the web series began airing on March 12, 2015. The company's first show, Critical Role, was a huge success. The company's second show, Talks Machina, then premiered on Geek & Sundry and Alpha, Legendary Digital Networks' subscription streaming service, in 2016. In June 2018, Critical Role launched its own Twitch and YouTube channels, with cast member Marisha Ray being announced as the creative director of the franchise. Critical Role then started to self-produce new shows and content which did not air on Geek & Sundry's channels. The sets for Critical Role and Talks Machina moved from Legendary Digital Network's studios to Critical Role's own studios in July 2018. The eight founders—the cast members of Critical Role itself―"own equity stakes in the company". Since 2019, Travis Willingham has served as chief executive officer, Matthew Mercer as chief creative officer, and Marisha Ray as creative director. Several senior Legendary Digital staff members joined Critical Role during the split, with head of digital strategy and operations Ed Lopez becoming chief operating officer, vice president of marketing Rachel Romero becoming senior vice president of marketing at Critical Role, and Ben Van Der Fluit becoming senior vice president of business development. Independent studio (2019–present) Critical Role's split from Geek & Sundry and Legendary Digital Networks completed in February 2019. From this point Critical Role took over production responsibility of the Critical Role and Talks Machina shows, with live broadcasts of their shows and the video on demand (VOD) now airing exclusively on Critical Role's own channels. The disengagement