Cavalry Media is in financial trouble

EXCLUSIVE: Management/production company Cavalry Media appears to be going down the drain. We hear the company, founded by Keegan Rosenberger and the late Dana Brunetti, is in financial chaos. How desperate is that? The company’s 14 employees were not paid for months and did not receive any social benefits for that long.

Some employees owe $50,000 to $500,000 in back payments and commissions. While Rosenberger and Cavalry CFO Reed Rogers’ executives have been promised more money is on the way in pending deals, they are tired of hearing excuses. They believe that the cavalry is not coming and that the company has flown through most of its $14 million in seed capital. Lawsuits to recover wages are being mobilized, Deadline hears.

Cavalry’s Rosenberger defends he’s making a big acquisition in sound and more money is on the way to right the ship here.

“The company is not in financial trouble,” Rosenberger told Deadline this afternoon.

“We have not been notified of a single wage claim or received anything from a third-party attorney,” he added. Prior to Cavalry, Rosenberger led strategy and business development at Relativity Media.

Morale in the ranks has hit rock bottom. Employees and their families struggle financially and must either borrow to keep afloat or live off their savings to pay their mortgage or their children’s college tuition. Cavalry employees are currently locked in a battle with Rosenberger after being advised by an attorney to continue to keep count of wage claims they have filed against the company. A legal representative for the Cavalry staff did not comment to Deadline.

It would be fair if Cavalry fired the employees, but once they did, they would face company-wide late payments and fines. The workforce is now trying to get new jobs and get all kinds of projects out of the company. Brunetti is the only employee to leave the company so far, as Deadline first reported. We understand that Rosenberger does not receive a salary from the company.

Some were told by management that commissions were paid. To receive it, they will have to cut their wage rights. Employees don’t bite.

Cavalry employees were told last Halloween that their health insurance would end the next day. Some believe the company also did not pay health insurance before that date. The last paycheck for some came on December 30, and there hasn’t been a paycheck since.

Sources believe that of Cavalry’s $14 million in seed capital, $9 million was spent between development and overhead. Deadline was shown a statement from Tiger Media Holdings, a joint account owned by Cavalry and its financial partner Titan, with a balance of $2.85 million.

When one employee was alerted to such information, he said, “If they have so much money, why isn’t anyone getting paid?”

Those struggling include third-party vendors such as social media and podcast editors, as well as talent who host podcasts. Even more ironic: Cavalry Media has no offices and the company has been working remotely since the pandemic. This means that there is no expensive monthly rent.

Other complaints we have heard are that Cavalry hired suppliers and employees, and even encouraged employees to secure intellectual property when they did not have the finances to meet such obligations. This has embarrassed many of those who work for Cavalry Media with talent reps and industry executives.

Cavalry Media has not greenlit any television series or films. Some of this can be attributed to Covid. In the Cavalry podcast section Art Fraud, X Marks the Spot: The Legend of Forrest Fenn, and the Oscar Isaac-Edgar Castillo podcast The Rosenberg case. art fraud remains in development as a film with Netflix, with a script written by Wells Tower. Other series in development include engine heads at Amazon Studios and the devil in me at Epix.

Cavalry Media has also been named as a defendant in several lawsuits related to the film rust, but we’re told they weren’t producers on the doomed Western production (nor the upcoming sequel). Cavalry was mentioned rust Fittingly, star/producer Alec Baldwin and director Joel Souza are clients of the company. However, Cavalry Media is trying to exit the talent management business and turn its attention to content creation. And this despite the fact that the two sources of income are commissions and podcasts.

Cavalry Media was founded in 2018 with the goal of creating affordable, premium films and TV series for linear and new media platforms in the $40-80 million range.

We will keep you posted on what happens next.