Who Owns Rooster Teeth?

Burnie Burns, Matt Hullum, Geoff Ramsey, Gus Sorola, Jason Saldaña, and Joel Heyman founded Rooster Teeth in a spare bedroom in Buda, Texas, in 2003. Their first project, Red vs. Blue, used the video game Halo as a stage, recording characters inside the game engine and overdubbing comedy dialogue. The technique, called machinima, was new at the time, and the series became one of the internet's first breakout video hits, ultimately running for eighteen seasons and earning the title of longest-running web series.

The company professionalized through the late 2000s, moving to Austin and expanding into live-action comedy, podcasts, and animation. It launched Achievement Hunter as a gaming content arm in 2008 and produced the anime-influenced series RWBY beginning in 2013 under creator Monty Oum. The RTX fan convention, launched in 2011, grew into a major Austin event drawing tens of thousands of attendees.

Corporate ownership arrived in stages. Fullscreen acquired a majority stake in 2014, and AT&T's Otter Media, which co-owned Fullscreen, took full control in 2015. When AT&T merged WarnerMedia with Discovery in 2022, Rooster Teeth landed inside Warner Bros. Discovery's streaming division.

By then the economics had soured. Subscriber revenue and advertising could not cover a staff that had grown past 400, and WBD, under its own debt pressure, put the studio up for sale. Finding no buyer, it announced the shutdown in March 2024. Operations ceased in May 2024, with Red vs. Blue concluding in a film-length finale, Restoration.

Less than a year later, Burns bought the brand back. His Box Canyon Productions announced the acquisition in February 2025 with a slate that included revived classic shows, an original audio drama called Again, and a reimagining of Burns' first film, The Schedule. The relaunch has been deliberately modest, funded through direct fan support and focused on the brand's original community.