Website www.asylument.com Headquarters California Type of business Television; Film; Media | Founded 2001 Owner Legendary Entertainment | |
Founder Steve Michaels - CEO
Jonathan Koch - CCO Video games Curse: The Eye of Isis, The Powerpuff Girls: Chemical X-traction, Sushi Go Round, Steinzeit Ur-lympiade | ||
Asylum Entertainment is a television production company based in Encino, California, United States. It is known for producing reality and scripted television series such as Beyond the Glory and The Kennedys. It was purchased by Legendary Pictures in 2014.
Steve Michaels (son of sportscaster Al Michaels) and Jonathan Koch formed Asylum Entertainment in 2001 when they began producing Beyond the Glory for Fox Sports. The series ran for 5 seasons and was nominated for 10 Emmys. With its success, Asylum went on to produce several other sports programming series such as IN FOCUS, ESPN’s 30 FOR 30, and the Emmy nominated series Fearless. They soon began to expand their programming to include reality beyond sports programming, producing The Locator, Addicted, American Gangster and many more.
In 2011, Asylum crossed over into scripted content with The Kennedys, the highly acclaimed 10-time Emmy nominated eight-part mini-series for ReelzChannel starring Greg Kinnear, Katie Holmes, Barry Pepper and Tom Wilkinson. After The Kennedys' success, Asylum Entertainment entered into a production deal with ReelzChannel to develop and produce original series for the network, which included The Kennedy Files, Beverly Hills Pawn, Murder in the City of Angels and Hollywood Hillbillies.
The company’s other reality series include Urban Tarzan for Spike TV, Owner's Manual for AMC, Gangsters for Biography, The Lylas for WE tv, Big Fish Texas for National Geographic Channel, Finding My Father for Oxygen and Homegrown Makeover for FYI. In 2014, Asylum partnered with Ron Howard and Brian Grazer (Imagine Entertainment) and GE on a signature series for National Geographic Channel entitled Breakthrough. The anthology series, with each hour exploring an innovation in science and made by a different director, debuted in November 2015. Nat Geo has ordered a second season. Asylum is producing another anthology series for the network entitled Origins.
The company has continued to make critically acclaimed scripted content. The film Ring of Fire, starring Jewel as June Carter Cash, debuted on Lifetime TV in May 2013. The four-hour miniseries The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe, starring Kelli Garner and Susan Sarandon, aired on Lifetime in May 2015. Both films were nominated for Emmys. Another Lifetime film, Manson’s Lost Girls, aired in February 2016. After Camelot, the four-hour sequel to The Kennedys, starts production in April 2016. Asylum has also made two feature films. A coming-of-age movie starring Christopher Meloni, Small Time, was written and directed by Joel Surnow. The documentary feature Happy Valley, about the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State, was directed by Amir Bar-Lev for A&E Indie Films.