If you’re a fan of shows like “Shark Tank,” “Gordon Ramsay’s Food Stars” or even “The Apprentice,” Sonic Gods Studios might just have your next favorite business-focused reality competition in “60 Day Hustle.”
Season 2 of the entrepreneurial series just streamed on Prime Video, and the team behind it — Michelle Delamor, Chris Hayman and Adam Horner — told TheWrap’s Office With a View why they have every intention of making it the biggest business franchise in the world. For them, it’s this pursuit of greatness that defines their entertainment and IP development studio.
And not only does Delamor co-host “60 Day Hustle” alongside Rudy Mawer, who made the Top 20 of “American Idol” Season 9. Sixteen years later, she is now chief growth officer of the company she co-founded with her chief creative officer husband Hayman, while Horner serves as head of production.
Read TheWrap’s full conversation, which has been slightly edited for brevity and clarity, with Delamor, Hayman and Horner below.
TheWrap: How did Sonic Gods Studios come into existence?
Chris Hayman: Michelle and I are married, but before we were together we were both in entertainment on the music side, and Adam was on the film and TV side. We’ve all known each other for a long time — 12, 15 years. Originally, being a music artist, film composer and music producer, Sonic Gods came from this idea of elevating consciousness through vibration. That’s really what we do now as an entertainment studio, create content that elevates and inspires people. So our logo is like a rising phoenix, but it’s purple, the color of transmutation.
Michelle Delamor: Basically, while I was on “American Idol,” I had a lot of girls reach out to me and talk about the struggles that they were going through. So, I set up my first company called No Girl Left Behind, where we would see tens of thousands of girls. It was a live experience that was transformative, but with that, all these brands that wanted to reach younger girls, teen girls, approached us. That was the very beginning of working with brands, figuring out sponsorship for entertainment.
We joined forces, took a little side quest and became an advertising agency that grew very quickly, and then the three of us looked like, “What did we come here for? What’s our passion? What do we actually want to build?” And it was an entertainment studio. The beauty of that little side quest is that it allowed us to really understand what CMOs at the largest scale are looking for, the type of ROI that they need. So we were able to take all of that and build it into our studio model, which is now our competitive advantage and how we’re able to co-finance projects.
“60 Day Hustle” Season 2 includes expertise and backing from brands like Shopify, BetterHelp, Chime, ZipRecruiter and Factor. How did you get to that point?
Adam Horner: We went through what felt like the golden age of independent film and television, where there were lots of buyers — and then the buyers started consolidating. We started to lose some of the different outlets that were making these movies a viable business; distribution dollars were sort of tightening up a little bit, things were becoming a bit harder. We all sat down in a room one day with a whiteboard and mapped out where the industry was at that current time — probably 2022, ’23. It was like, if we can find a way to bring some brand dollars to the table on projects and offset some of those upfront fees and flip around the traditional finance model for film and television, we’re going to be in a really, really great spot.
Then we took a realistic look at what kinds of project could we develop that we can integrate this new finance model into, and that’s where we landed on unscripted. We’re all entrepreneurs, we knew we wanted to do something in the business category. There’s a lot of great shows in that category, but it’s still sort of underserved for where we are as a whole in 2026. A lot of these business shows, they’ve been around for years and the formats haven’t really changed too much. “60 Day Hustle” is a show that we could implement brands into authentically, without slapping adverts in the middle of content. When we first started the company, we weren’t like, “Oh, we’re an unscripted company.” It just naturally went that way.
Delamor: We also watch unscripted, primarily. We love scripted projects, of course, but when we sit down at home and we’re watching TV, it’s either a docuseries or a competition show, so it just felt like a very natural place for us to creatively build from.
Some of your other projects include “Just Hands: For the Love of Racing,” a streaming docuseries that follows quadriplegic racer Torsten Gross in the competitive world of GT motorsport, and scripted space-age project “Solus.” Can you share more about those?
Horner: We kind of went into [“Just Hands”] a bit blind. We partnered with Shell — who’s owned by Pennzoil, a sponsor of Torsten — and it was as run-and-gun as it gets. It was just us filming with five guys who, honestly, did such a fantastic job putting the story together in the edit. We had terabytes and terabytes and terabytes of footage. It was sort of outside our model, if you will, because the documentary world is a little bit different from these shows that we’re doing it ended up being such an amazing project.
Hayman: We’re very focused on technology. Obviously, there’s a lot going on with AI right now, and the reason “Solus” actually exists is because the whole project is done with technology. It has traditional filmmaking elements, it’s scripted, but it was all done with virtual production on an LED wall backdrop, with AI elements as well. Where the studio is going is, we want to be very technology-forward, always. As we look to the future of what we’re building, whether it’s on the unscripted or the scripted side, as we evolve, we’re just passionate about technology.
How did you decide on your company’s three main pillars: sports, business entrepreneurship and women’s lifestyle?
Delamor: Overarching is this pursuit of greatness. Right now, where we are really developing our current slate, it is in those three categories. Female-driven, female talent-led content is a big one for us. Then business, with “60 Day Hustle” and the success we’re having with that show, really leaning even further into that. And sports just have this very natural story opportunity. It’s also something that we can all get inspired by when we think about champions rising, so we’re really excited to tell more stories in that arena.
Hayman: There’s more stories coming out of sports, which is where it’s getting more and more exciting. When you go deeper with it, the depth and the story that comes from these people that are competing at the highest level is the pursuit of an incredible dream and the pursuit of being the best in the world. Such a cool narrative just built into reality.
What does the future hold for Sonic Gods Studios?
Hayman: We’re the little engine that could, in the sense that we want to compete at the highest level with the biggest studios in the world. Even though we’re small, we have a model that we really believe will allow us to compete at the highest level. We’re storytellers at the end of the day, and to be able to greenlight projects independently and in collaboration with the big studios, what’s next on the horizon is being able to release those stories on a global scale.
We want to really turn “60 Day Hustle” into the No. 1 business competition franchise in the world, and that is something that we’re very dedicated to. We have a ton of respect for our competitors — “Shark Tank” and “The Apprentice” and some of the other shows out there — but they’ve been around for 20+ years. Ours is designed for a younger generation. And in terms of business, there are some really exciting things that are happening internationally that we have in the works. It’s just our mission, we love the pursuit of greatness, so we’re putting ourselves in that path as well.
Delamor: There’s a lot of firepower going into that right now, we’re really excited about it. And then we’re also developing other IP, formats and shows that we’ll be moving into production. But to Chris’ point: The pursuit of greatness? We’re literally living it.
