About
Eric D. Kessler is a Los Angeles based entertainment and corporate attorney with more than a decade of in house deal experience at some of the industry's most active production and animation companies. He has closed hundreds of agreements across scripted television, animated series and features, live action film, kids and family, young adult, branded entertainment, and digital first content, and has structured the underlying rights, talent, co production, financing, and distribution deals that bring those projects to market.
Lion Forge Entertainment
Eric most recently served as Senior Vice President and Head of Business and Legal Affairs at Lion Forge Entertainment, the Oscar winning animation and live action studio behind Hair Love and the breakout Cartoon Network and HBO Max fantasy series Iyanu. In that role he led all deal making, business affairs, production legal, and related legal work across the company's animation, live action, and digital slates.
Representative work at Lion Forge includes:
The $30 million minority investment round led by HarbourView Equity Partners alongside the Steward Family and Polarity, supporting expansion of the studio's IP portfolio and premium franchise pipeline.
The Lostlings YA live action series with TalesVision founders Tristan Tales and Luke Pounder. The supernatural mystery, drawing comparisons to Stranger Things, premieres on YouTube before second window release on traditional streaming and linear outlets. Eric serves as Executive Producer on the series.
Animated project partnership with George R.R. Martin and screenwriter Joe R. Lansdale to adapt Howard Waldrop's novella A Dozen Tough Jobs into an adult animated feature film, with French studio Blue Spirit (Blue Eye Samurai) providing animation services.
The Beyond the Paddock YA series acquisition, based on Kimberly Ann Harrison's debut novel, with Harrison (Friends, Criminal Minds, Washington Black for Hulu, The Crossover for Disney) adapting and showrunning.
Lion Forge's first of its kind strategic partnership with Scouting America (formerly Boy Scouts of America), creating a multi platform family content slate spanning premium scripted series, unscripted programming, live action features, and documentary projects.
Renewal of Iyanu for a second season on Cartoon Network and HBO Max, plus two universe expanding feature films, Iyanu: The Age of Wonders and Iyanu: The War of Twin Princes.
Strategic partnerships and first look deals across the studio's broader slate, including Nickelodeon Animation, Penguin Young Readers, the Bob Marley Estate (Marley and The Family Band), Simon and Schuster (Chicka Chicka Boom Boom), Mostapes (Iron Dragon), Rebel Girls, and Oware.
Lion Forge produced features Jacob Beats Up Nate, starring Lamorne Morris and Justin Long, and A Dog's Perfect Christmas, starring Dennis Quaid, for Netflix.
Imagine Entertainment
Before Lion Forge, Eric spent over five years at Imagine Entertainment, one of Hollywood's most prolific production companies, rising from Manager to Vice President and Corporate Counsel. He served as in house counsel for projects on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, CBS, Nickelodeon, and international partners worldwide.
Representative scripted and artist driven work includes The Gringo Hunters on Netflix, a drama developed in partnership with The Washington Post and based on its award winning reporting on a Mexican special forces unit, where Eric negotiated underlying rights, structured cross border production and talent deals, and navigated politically sensitive material across multiple jurisdictions. He also negotiated key agreements across all three seasons of Wu-Tang: An American Saga, the co created Hulu series from The RZA and Alex Tse, protecting one of the most culturally significant IP licenses in Imagine's portfolio.
In kids and family, Eric served as lead in-house counsel on Bossy Bear, the Nick Jr. preschool animated series produced by Imagine Kids and Family based on the book series by David Horvath and Sun-Min Kim (UglyDolls), overseeing production, IP licensing, and merchandising. He also oversaw all production, IP licensing, and merchandising deals on The Tiny Chef Show, the three season Nickelodeon stop-motion series with celebrity executive producers including Kristen Bell and RuPaul.
In branded entertainment, Eric negotiated brand integrations, talent agreements, and distribution rights for Imagine's flagship Coca-Cola x Amazon Prime Video initiative under the "Real Magic Presents" platform, including the 2023 follow-up The Santa Stories starring Octavia Spencer and directed by Bryce Dallas Howard and Steven Caple Jr., and the Minutes to Movies short film festival partnership with Instagram and Adobe.
On the corporate side, Eric oversaw mergers, acquisitions, dispositions, and joint ventures, including Imagine's acquisition of Jax Media (Emily in Paris) and a strategic investment in Alex Gibney's Jigsaw Productions as part of Imagine's documentary expansion. He also supported investments in Tiny Chef Productions and Impact Creative Systems, and led international production legal across Australia, Mexico, Europe, and Asia.
Earlier career
Eric began his entertainment career in business affairs at WarnerMedia and Turner Broadcasting, working across TNT, TBS, and the early HBO Max Originals pipeline, and held earlier positions in legal and business affairs at Disney ABC.
Credentials
Eric is a member of the State Bar of California. He holds a J.D. from Southwestern Law School, a B.S. in Business Management from Babson College, and an Executive Certificate in Mergers and Acquisitions from Columbia Business School. He has also completed IBM's Artificial Intelligence Foundations certificate, reflecting a working command of the AI tools and frameworks increasingly relevant to entertainment legal practice, including contract review, rights management, and the licensing and policy questions emerging around generative AI in film, television, and animation.
Current practice
Eric now operates The Law Office of Eric D. Kessler, offering the same deal side depth that studios rely on internally to production companies, creators, and entertainment businesses that need serious legal counsel without the big firm overhead. Services include fractional General Counsel and Business & Legal Affairs engagements, deal structuring and negotiation, IP and rights work, talent and production agreements, and corporate transactional support.