Neal Harmon
Neal Harmon is an entrepreneur. Along with his brother, Jeff Harmon, he founded Angel Studios in 2021. One of Angel Studios’ distribution and platform projects is "The Chosen" series by filmmaker Dallas Jenkins. "His Only Son," the biblical film based on the story of Abraham and Isaac releasing just before Easter 2023, set records for crowdfunding. It is the "first time a theatrical release has been crowdfunded in entertainment history."[1]
The Harmon brothers also formed the Dry Bar Comedy Club in Provo, Utah, in 2016.
The formation of the comedy club that doesn’t sell alcohol and sticks to clean stand-up comedy came on the heels of their creation of VidAngel in 2014 with brothers Daniel and Jordan Harmon. According to the Deseret News, the streaming service that allowed users to remove content they found objectionable from Hollywood movies and TV shows “attracted enough customers and irritated enough Hollywood studios that a court issued a preliminary injunction ordering it to stop its streaming service. A subsequent verdict in 2019 ordered VidAngel to pay $62 million in damages to several studios and the company filed for bankruptcy. In September 2020,Utah Bankruptcy Court Judge Kevin R. Anderson approved the settlement of a $9.9 million payout to Disney and Warner Bros. that would stretch out over 14 years and allow the company to emerge from bankruptcy. The company operates a filtering service based on Netflix and Amazon content and has started to produce some of its own original programming.
VidAngel CEO Neal Harmon said, “As with any compromise, we had to make painfully difficult concessions to arrive at this agreement, as did Disney and Warner Brothers. We want to thank the team at Disney and Warner Brothers for negotiating this settlement in good faith. We also want to thank our fans and supporters, millions of people who have stood with us through thick and thin over the last four years of a battle that all too often looked lost and hopeless.”[2]
The comedy at Dry Bar is enjoyed by both live audiences and millions of online viewers. Dry Bar’s Facebook page followers alone stand at 4.6 million. YouTube subscribers stand at 2.29 million.
Harmon earned his bachelor’s degree in American Studies and his master’s degree in Instructional Psychology and Technology from Brigham Young University.
