Man at Arms: Danny Trejo to Host Pop Culture Weapons Series
by Regina Avalos, March 5, 2017


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Get ready to see Danny Trejo on the small screen. He will soon be the host of a new pop culture series titled Man at Arms. The series will arrive in June.

El Rey Network shared a press release detailing the new series. Check that out below.
“Danny Trejo (Machete, Sons of Anarchy) will host the upcoming El Rey Network original unscripted series “Man at Arms.” The eight-part series will premiere on the network in early June 2017. As host of “Man at Arms”, Trejo will introduce each episode, preside over the expert roundtable of builders, historians and martial artists and participate in the weapons testing phase to see how much destruction they can cause.

“Who better to host a show celebrating iconic weapons in pop culture than ‘Machete’ himself, Danny Trejo?” asked El Rey Network president and G.M. Daniel Tibbets. “Danny is a longtime friend of our founder, Robert Rodriguez and also of El Rey Network. He brings the right mix of mentorship, humor and knowledge to ‘Man at Arms’.”

El Rey Network will bring the popular and celebrated digital series, “Man at Arms” to television in a co-production deal with DEFY Media, the studio that created “Man at Arms”. Iconic weapons and armor have played a starring role in some of the most memorable scenes in movie history and can be found throughout pop culture, from movies to video games to comics to TV shows. In each episode of “Man at Arms”, a team of expert craftsmen skillfully reproduce famed weapons and armor from scratch, using both the technology that would have been available at the time such weapons and armor were originally created, as well as state-of-the-art technologies beyond the original forgers’ wildest imaginations, to create historical, modern, and mythological works of martial art. Each masterwork is then tested by experts for its strength and real-world functionality. Whether it slices, shoots, smashes, stabs, blocks, parries, or disarms, viewers will get a first-hand look at what kind of force each marvelous masterpiece can unleash. DEFY Media’s award-winning digital series, which recently celebrated its 100th episode, consistently averages over 1.5MM views per episode and has built a vast and passionate fan community.

“Man at Arms” is produced by DEFY, led by heads of Television/OTT Production and Development Jared Hoffman and Chris Pollack, Chief Content Officer Barry Blumberg, and El Rey Network. Hoffman and Pollack serve as series executive producers and showrunners. Blumberg will also serve as an executive producer.”

El Rey picks up “Man at Arms,” “Rite of Passage”
By Selina Chignall January 16, 2017



Texas-based lifestyle net, El Rey Network, has picked up two original unscripted series, Man At Arms and Rite of Passage.

The digital series Man At Arms will be brought to television in a copro with Defy Media, the digital studio behind the series. El Rey has ordered eight, one-hour episodes of the series where expert craftsmen reproduce famed weapons and armor from scratch. Using technology from the time they were originally produced, along with state-of-art technology, the craftsmen create “historical, modern and mythological works of martial art,” a statement from the network said. The weaponry is then tested by experts for functionality and strength.

Man at Arms will be produced by Defy, led by heads of Television/OTT production and development Jared Hoffman and Chris Pollack, chief content officer Barry Blumberg and El Rey Network. Hoffman and Pollack will also serve as series’ executive producers and showrunners.

David Sherman at William Morris Endeavor Entertainment negotiated the deal.

El Rey has also picked up the 12-part docuseries Rite of Passage. Award-winning producer, reporter and cameraman Tim Noonan (pictured) scours the earth, immersing himself in local cultures where he participates in the rituals that define the transition to manhood. These rituals land Noonan in environments like the anaconda-infested plains of Venezuela, and in Cameroon, West Africa, where he crawls headfirst into the home of a giant rock python to wrestle it from its lair.

Seven Productions, a division of The Seven Network in Australia, produced Rite of Passage.

Both Man at Arms and Right of Passage will air in the first half of 2017 on the El Rey Network.
For more on EL REY, see our El Rey Network and Shaw Brothers thread.

For more on Man at Arms, see our Katana Forging thread.