Patrick Bohrer

Christopher Nolan's movies would be nothing without the secret billionaire who backed them. Thomas Tull abandoned law school to start a chain of laundromats. To increase profits he created a computer system that changed prices depending on demand. After joining an Atlanta investment firm focused on entertainment, and rising to President, Thomas noticed something. The rise of DVD sales made investing in movies more profitable than ever before. But the lack of professional capital in Hollywood was puzzling. Thomas describes the time he spent raising $500M for Legendary Pictures as the hardest of his career. When the job was done, Thomas had essentially built a bank lending money to moviemakers. Legendary funded films would go on to generate over $13B at the box office. The Hangover, 300, Jurassic World the list goes on. Thomas was known to lean on data analytics and AI to cut marketing costs and predict the success of movies. But his stroke of genius was an early bet on a young Christopher Nolan. As the financier behind "The Dark Knight Trilogy" and "Inception", he made 50% of their multi-billion dollar profits. He even has a Cameo in "The Dark Knight Rises," in the owner’s suite at the Steelers stadium filming site. Fun fact: he sold another company to Acrisure (the new name bearer of what was Heinz Field). It makes sense because he’s actually owns a stake in the Steelers. Seeing the rising demand for American movies in China, Thomas sold Legendary pictures to a Chinese entertainment company for $3.5B. That’s only $500M less than what Disney paid for Star Wars. Flush with riches, Tull explains in hindsight he was always more interested in analytics than movie making. Now Tull is doubling down on a new thesis. VC's and institutional are warming up to investing in American defense startups. He's all in on the sector, backing a variety of AI defense companies like one that enables drone swarms to operate autonomously.