Alexis Garcia has been busy. In just over a year, the former Fifth Season film head launched CAT5, an action-focused film label, and co-founded Brass Knuckle Films with Robert Rodriguez. Now, with $2 million raised from over 2,000 individual investors and a unique “Best Idea Wins” contest underway, Garcia is betting that efficiency and fan engagement can reshape how action movies get made.
Garcia’s path to independent film financing began over a decade ago as an agent/partner at Endeavor/WME, where he packaged and sold films including “The Nice Guys” and “Drive.” He spent seven years at Fifth Season, helping scale the company from its 2017 launch as Endeavor Content into a prolific film supplier, financing and producing over 40 movies including recent Jason Statham hit “A Working Man,” Michael Bay’s “Ambulance,” and the Stephen Chbosky-directed “Nonnas,” on Netflix which was the No. 3 most-watched streaming program of the week, according to Nielsen’s most-watched streaming chart.
The launch of Brass Knuckle Films represents Garcia’s most ambitious project yet— a joint venture with Rodriguez that allows fans to invest in action movies and even pitch their own film concepts. The initiative raised its $2 million target early, attracting what Garcia calls “Warriors” — a community of 2,184 investors consisting of fans, industry disruptors, and dreamers who believe in democratizing film financing.
The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
You’ve gone from CAT5 in 2024 to co-founding Brass Knuckle Films in 2025. What drove this rapid expansion, and how do these entities work together strategically?
CAT5 was my exit from Fifth Season, backed by Fifth Season and focused in the action space. The bet I was making was coming out of running a generalist film department where we made 40-plus movies over four to five years. There was never a focused creative strategy — it was about scale and volume. When I was looking at what to do next, I wanted to go completely the other direction. How can I be as focused as possible in a commercial space?
I chose action as the most commercial, internationally friendly space. One of the first calls I made was to Robert Rodriguez, and as I was pitching him what I was doing, I realized I was pitching him his business. He’s always preached efficiencies — telling studios he can make films for less, but then they’d waste the savings somewhere else.
Technically, Brass Knuckle Films is a joint venture between CAT5 and Robert, but anything I want to be doing in the action space, I want it to be Brass Knuckle Films. Going forward, on a new action project, if it doesn’t fit in Brass Knuckle Films for some reason, why would I spend time on it outside of that when we’re building this together?
You raised $2 million from 2,184 investors you call “Warriors.” Can you break down the economics of this fan-investor model?
The terms we gave to those investors — because of the experimental nature and knowing many are coming in for small amounts — were better than what you’d find in the marketplace for development finance. A lot of investors came in at the minimum of $250.
It was less about needing that amount of money and more about building this community for the brand. Part of what drove the campaign was our “Best Idea Wins” contest, where we’ll develop at least one project from an idea submitted by our investors. They have until June 19 to submit their idea. We’ll review all of them, pass some to round two with feedback, then the top ones create videos. Twenty finalists will pitch directly to Robert over Zoom, and we’ll pick one to develop into a script.
What market gaps is Brass Knuckle Films designed to fill that traditional studios aren’t addressing?
The desire and ability to make movies in this genre efficiently. Working with established stars is important in action films, and if you can’t make these movies efficiently, you’re asking stars for three months on set. If you can make it more efficiently, you can slide into slots where we can shoot them out in a month and still make something that looks like it cost $100 million but for a lot less.
The buyers all want these movies with stars. If we can make it more efficiently and figure out how to fit into schedules between their Marvel commitments, everybody wins. We want everybody to win — financiers, talent, distributors. Most in Hollywood are looking for their interest to win, but we can build something where everybody wins.
Action films are globally popular, but the market is crowded. What’s your differentiation strategy beyond the fan-investor component?
There’s a strong desire to be original, but in the action space, over 50% of submissions we receive reference “John Wick.” We’re not looking for another “John Wick” or “Die Hard” in a whatever setting.” This genre is where “programmer” is a pejorative term, but what we’re talking about is something that could reach the broadest audiences possible — and that can often be not cool for executives who want something that can win at festivals.
I don’t think “Fast and Furious” ever got close to a fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but that’s the most successful pure action franchise in history. We don’t want to turn our nose up at the idea that this is a genre that should play as broadly as possible, not just in America but around the world. We’re going to make it cool and original and fresh, but we’re looking for movies that can play to all sorts of audiences, especially those who love action, which is the broadest audience in the world.
What are the next steps now that you’re officially open for business?
We’re identifying writers we love in the genre who either could write something new for us or who might have something that’s been stuck at a studio for a decade or reverted back to them. There’s never been a shortage of studios buying scripts in the genre, but I think the conversion rate is very low when it comes to hot action specs actually getting made.
We’ll also work with actors we’ve been speaking with — what kind of action movie makes sense for this actor plus Robert at Brass Knuckle Films? We want a slate that’s purposeful, not just because it’s all action, but because we know we’re developing this script to make it with this director, this star, in this window, in this way. We can think about all that as opposed to buying a bunch of stuff and seeing how it comes out. We want to develop and already be setting production schedules.
