Patron protections

Films are reflective of our history.

Planet Legends is built to reach into our past and provide the best opportunities for our audience — giving them the chance to see and participate in films that might otherwise be lost to time.

~5%

Of titles greenlit for restoration

100%

Chain of title verified before acquisition

Pari passu

Patrons recoup before any profit split

We're not in the business of digitizing every reel that surfaces. We're in the business of restoring the films that will endure, find a new audience, and return capital to their patrons.

01 — The screen

What every title must clear

The 5% we take forward have to hit every one of these — not most, all.

Clean chain of title

Rights fully traced from original production through every successor entity. No orphan works, no contested ownership, no surprise heirs.

Surviving elements

Original camera negative, interpositive, or printable fine-grain in restorable condition — or a credible path to one through archive partners.

Cultural significance

A film that earned its place — critically, historically, or culturally — and deserves to be seen by a new generation, not just remembered.

Restoration scope

Line-item restoration budget stress-tested against scanning, color, sound, and conservation work, with realistic timelines from accredited labs.

Distribution path

A defensible re-release thesis: theatrical revival, streaming licensing, festival circuit, or library catalog — with comparables and target partners.

Audience demand

Evidence the film still has a public — repertory bookings, festival programming, scholarly interest, or an active collector base.

02 — What we pass on

The titles we send back to the vault

The fastest way to understand how we work is to understand what we don't accept.

Films with contested or unverifiable rights. Period.

AI-upscaled cash grabs dressed up as restoration.

Cuts assembled from incomplete or untraceable source material.

Reissues of titles already well-served by existing restorations.

03 — Restoration oversight

Our team is in the lab

Acquiring a title is the easy part. The real risk lives in the scan, the color suite, and the sound restoration. So we sit in those rooms too.

Budget control

Planet Legends holds signing authority on the restoration account. Funds release against archive milestones — scan, conform, color, sound, conservation — not vendor invoices alone.

Archive standards

Every restoration follows FIAF and AMIA best practices. Master files are deposited with an accredited archive so the work outlives any single distributor.

Insurance & deliverables

Source elements are insured in transit and storage. Final deliverables include 4K DCP, archival master, and HDR/SDR streaming masters — locked before any patron payout.

04 — Revenue waterfall