Equals Three In October 2012, Johnson announced that he would be leaving Maker Studios, contending that they had been pressuring him to sign a new contract that limited his access to his
AdSense account and would reportedly take 40% of his earnings from the series. The contract also would have required Johnson to give up 50% of his
intellectual property rights to the show and his other animated web project,
Your Favorite Martian. In November 2012, Johnson founded his own production studio, Equals Three Studios (then known as Runaway Planet), and continued producing
Equals Three.
Your Favorite Martian series was ended that same month. In December 2013, Johnson announced that he would be ending
Equals Three in the near future to focus on other projects. His last show as host (titled "THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING") was published on March 12, 2014, and was around 14 minutes long. The channel had over 10 million subscribers and 2.6 billion total views at the time of Johnson's departure. The show returned in July 2014 with Robby Motz as host. Motz would depart in July 2015, at which point Kaja Martin, one of Johnson's frequent collaborators, took over as host, but Martin was subsequently replaced by Carlos Santos in December 2015. In 2015, Johnson sued
Jukin Media for requesting the removal of 40
Equals Three videos which sampled their content. The case was later settled. The series featured numerous celebrity guests, including
Robin Williams,
Sarah Silverman,
Gabriel Iglesias,
John Cho, and
Jason Biggs.
Scripted series In December 2013, Johnson debuted his first scripted series,
Riley Rewind, which was originally released on Facebook before migrating to YouTube. The series revolved around a teenager with a special time-shifting power. It was released in 5 parts and cumulatively totaled about 50 minutes. In 2015, Johnson reported the series had received 10 million views on Facebook. Earlier in 2013, Johnson was in talks with FX Networks about a scripted series based on his life. The network gave Johnson a script commitment. The script was to be written by Mike Gagerman and
Andrew Waller.
Other "Ray William Johnson" content Since his departure from
Equals Three, Johnson has continued producing comedic series for his main "Ray William Johnson" channel. These series included
Booze Lightyear,
Top 6, and
Comedians On.
Booze Lightyear was a scripted sketch comedy web series that featured a variety of different actors often in comedic situations. Johnson appeared on the series' first episode in February 2015. He was cast in a role as a new driver for a disabled recluse played by former
Breaking Bad star,
RJ Mitte. The film was written by Michael Carnick, who uses a wheelchair as the result of a rare disorder, and also stars
Paloma Kwiatkowski. ''Who's Driving Doug
was released in February 2016. Johnson previously had a small part in Jay & Silent Bob's Super Groovy Cartoon Movie''. Johnson is also the co-creator (with former
Equals Three host, Kaja Martin) of the film production company, Mom & Pop Empire. They are currently working on a documentary project seeking to expose cable monopolies. Johnson and Martin are co-producers along with Max Benator and Marc Hustvedt's Supergravity Pictures. Johnson is expected to narrate the film. Mom & Pop Empire had previously co-produced a film called
Manson Family Vacation with
Mark and
Jay Duplass. The film premiered at
South by Southwest in 2015 and its distribution rights were purchased by
Netflix soon after. Johnson and Martin are also working on a separate film starring Johnson and a long-form movie version of their web series
Booze Lightyear as part of Mom & Pop Empire. In the musical sphere, Johnson released an album titled
Fat Damon in 2018, which featured three tracks: "Conspiracy Theory Guy (ft.
Wax)", "My Life Is Dope", and "Fred Astaire". Additionally, he formed a virtual band named The Upside Downs, although the timeline of their releases is not specified. He also revived his side project "Your Favorite Martian" releasing a new video called "Orphan Tears Part 2", the first in over ten years. He has since transitioned to sharing true crime stories on social media in a
short-form content format, which has been particularly successful on
TikTok. ==Personal life==