“Greenlit it in 12 minutes”- Shark Tank investor Mark Cuban reflects on his Academy Award nomination for a documentary

Shark Tank investor Mark Cuban has signed many deals on the reality show while guiding young entrepreneurs. During his time on Shark Tank, Mark shared business and financial advice and opened up about his experiences as an investor.

Cuban co-founded the first commercial streaming company, AudioNet, which became Broadcast.com. Later, in July 2000, it was sold to Yahoo, after which he founded MicroSolutions. According to his ABC bio, Cuban has been nominated for 7 Academy Awards for Enron: The Smartest Guys In the Room, and Good Night and Good Luck.

In an interview with the FLAGRANT podcast, which was posted to their official YouTube channel on October 2, 2024, Cuban shared details of his achievements. Mark said he was contacted by Alex Gibney regarding the documentary. He continued:

"I'm like what's the budget for this documentary, he goes 770,000, I'm like I'll do that. So I literally greenlit it in 12 minutes and he creates this documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room which is insanely good. Back then it was a top 10 documentary in revenue, it's not close now. Then it got nominated for an Academy Award."

In the interview, Mark Cuban shared how he received an Academy Award nomination and became a billionaire. The description states:

"YERRRR, we had to get the Big B Billionaire Mark Cuban on the pod to help break down what's the beef between him and Trump, was he at any of the Diddy parties, why he HAD to leave the NBA, & much much more. INDULGE."

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Shark Tank investor Mark Cuban reflects on his journey and investing in documentaries

In his interview, the Shark Tank investor shared that his partner Todd reached out to him and said that they were going to invest in a movie. This happened after the success of Enron: The Smartest Guys In the Room, which was successful and was reportedly named among the Top 10 documentaries in revenue.

After this achievement, as an executive producer for 2929 and HDNet Films, Cuban invested in Good Night and Good Luck. The Shark Tank star continued:

"The next f**king year right, my partner Todd says we're going to invest in this movie, are you in? I said sure. It's about the McCarthy trials.... It's called Goodnight and Goodluck."

Cuban shared that he went to the success party of the movie and celebrated with Madonna, Cindy Crawford, and George Clooney. Mark stated they didn't win an award, but the nomination for 6 Academy awards was a great achievement.

The Shark Tank star mentioned he was open to investing in more movies, films, and documentaries. Later in the interview, Cuban talked about his love for business and stated he was not planning on retiring anytime soon. He said:

"It's like sports, you guys play sports, you just get like into it. You know, why do you go and play pickup all the time? Couple reasons, you know, the sound and the feel of the ball going through the hoop and just the competition. Business is the same way to me."

Viewers can stream all previous episodes of Shark Tank exclusively on ABC. Follow Mark Cuban on his official Instagram account to receive financial and business advice.