Mediawan’s Elisabeth d’Arvieu Welcomes Brad Pitt’s Plan B To The Fold – Deadline

Mediawan has been shaking the foundations of the movie and TV world in France and Europe because it was launched in 2015 by producer Pierre-Antoine Capton, billionaire entrepreneur Xavier Niel and financier Matthieu Pigasse.

Raising an preliminary $342 million (300 million euros) by itemizing shares on the Euronext Paris inventory alternate in 2016, the Paris-based group has since gathered some 70 movie and TV manufacturing labels underneath its umbrella in addition to secured the backing of U.S. funding companies KKR and Atwater Capitol.

High-profile acquisitions have included the tv division of Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp; Lagardère Studios and its 25 labels, together with Spain’s Boomerang Group; French manufacturing homes Chapter 2, Chi-Fou-Mi, Radar Films and Call My Agent creator Mon Voisin Productions in addition to Italian producer Palomar.

In 2021, it took a majority stake within the U.Okay.’s Drama Republic, whereas on the eve of Cannes, it purchased Submarine, the Amsterdam and Los Angeles multi-platform behind the Emmy-award-winning documentary Bellingcat: Truth in a Post-Truth World and Richard Linklater’s animated characteristic Apollo 10 1⁄2: A Space Age Childhood.

“We’re a French company based in France but the idea is to create a European studio made up of the best talents in Europe, in cinema, animation, documentary, series and live studio shows, and to help them make their productions, distribute them and export them internationally,” says Mediawan Pictures CEO Elisabeth d’Arvieu in an interview on the group’s seven-floor Paris HQ, residence to lots of the French labels.

“We don’t go after a company because it’s specialized in a particular type of genre. We rather connect with producers because of their talent. They’re often very anchored in their local market but produce content that travels. We’re also looking for people who share the same ambitions and DNA as us. It has to be the right fit.”

The burgeoning content material group made headlines past Europe final December when it introduced it was buying a major stake in Brad Pitt’s firm Plan B Entertainment.

Curiosity in regards to the $300 million deal and the way the manufacturing home behind The Departed, 12 Years a Slave and Moonlight will match into the Mediawan fold is rife on each side of the Atlantic.

“This partnership is an important step for us,” says d’Arvieu. “We’re a European studio, our DNA is European, but our vision is international. While our producers and talent are carrying projects that are local in nature, their international ambitions are growing.”

She continues: “The American market is an important one for European works, and we understood we needed a partner in situ. Until now, we’ve been working on a case-by-case basis, but we wanted a partner who could be the image of Mediawan in the U.S.”

Nicola Serra, managing director of Rome-based movie and TV The Name Of The Rose manufacturing firm Palomar which joined the Mediawan fold in 2019, thinks the partnership will likely be a game-changer.

His firm has already efficiently made inroads into the U.S. market with the Dominic Cooper and Douglas Booth-starring spaghetti Western sequence The Dirty Black Bag, which offered AMC+ in 2021, however he believes the Plan B connection will broaden alternatives.

“It’s difficult for a European company to be accepted and gain trust as a credible player in the U.S. Every time you want to pitch a project or sign a top talent, you need to prove yourself. We’ve built a network and reputation, but it’s really hard work and takes time,” says Serra.

“I think that now, for whoever within the group has good ideas for international projects with U.S. potential, this connection with Plan B will help and accelerate the process of getting them off the ground, if the projects are good, of course.”

D’Arvieu emphasizes that on the coronary heart of Mediawan’s method is respect for the independence of its producers and says it is a issue that helped facilitate the tie-in with Plan B. “When a producer joins Mediawan, there may be one factor we pledge to uphold, and that’s their complete independence when it comes to creativity and manufacturing. We’re by no means going to dictate what they make.

“They are protective of their creative independence, which fits perfectly with our DNA,” she says. “We came together in a fairly natural way. The idea is to build bridges between the United States and Europe, to bring European talents onto the international market.”

The govt factors to the trajectory of Florian Zeller, the Oscar-winning director The Father, whose Paris and LA-based manufacturing firm Blue Morning Pictures is backed by Mediawan, for example of a French expertise who has made it on each side of the Atlantic.

Plan B co-presidents Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner traveled to Paris in mid-April for conferences with a few of its European producers. Similar journeys are additionally deliberate to Spain and Italy.

Quizzed on first initiatives, D’Arvieu says concepts are cooking. “We only finalized the deal in January. It’s early days, but the exchanges have started already, and the aim is really to create exchanges between all our talent like Florian, Plan B, Chapter 2, Palomar, Chi-Fou-Mi…”

Chi-Fou-Mi founder and president Hugo Sélignac says the exchanges go each methods.

“When you lunch with Jeremy Kleiner, he’s asking questions about the French market and I’m asking him questions about the U.S. market and we’re chatting about projects at the same time,” he says. “There’s a lot of scope for synergies, not just with Plan B, but also other companies in the group. I also talk a lot, for example, with Palomar.”

Evoking the brand new Plan B connection, Radar Films founder Clément Miserez suggests that there’s a hole within the U.S. marketplace for the kind of household movie his firm focuses on alongside style fare.

He factors to the Netflix success of Radar’s 2021 movie Vicky And Her Mystery, a few motherless woman who varieties a bond with a wolf cub,

“When we embarked on international sales, U.S. buyers told us there was no longer an appetite for those White Fang, Free Willy style films. It was all Pixar, Marvel and Illumination, but then the film went up on Netflix and it was an enormous success, staying in the top 10 for weeks,” he says.

Outside of Mediawan’s Transatlantic ambitions, the main target is on its European hub, the place the group is steadily rising its cinema footprint, alongside its TV manufacturing actions, significantly in France.

It efficiently launched the primary a part of Martin Bourboulon’s bold $72 million two-part, French-language Alexandre Dumas adaptation The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan in early April. Spearheaded by Dimitri Rassam at Chapter 2, in collaboration with Pathé, and starring François Civil, Vincent Cassel, Romain Duris, Pio Marmaï, Eva Green, Louis Garrel, Vicky Krieps, and Lyna Khoudri, the movie has drawn greater than three million spectators at residence and achieved a complete worldwide gross of $27 million so far.

Two different movies produced by Mediawan labels have additionally loved success in latest weeks: Denis Imbert’s On The Wandering Path (Radar Films) and Jeanne Harry’s ensemble drama All Your Faces (Chi-Fou-Mi Productions).

The 2023 launch slate additionally contains Chapter 2’s Carmen by Benjamin Millepied and The Three Musketeers: Milady, in addition to Chi-Fou-Mi titles Omar La Fraise (which world premieres as a Cannes Midnight screening) and Nathan Ambrosioni’s Camille Cottin-starrer Toni, En Famille. Also developing are Autumn and the Black Jaguar, the newest manufacturing from Mia and the White Lion director Gilles de Maistre underneath his Mai-Juin Productions banner, and Jeremy Zag’s Miraculous, on which Mediawan label On Kids & Family is a producer.

“We’re across all types of cinemas from tentpoles to family films, auteur and genre works,” d’Arvieu says. “We don’t favor any one type of film. What interests us is the project, the talent, and the possibility that the film can travel.”

Chi-Fou-Mi’s Sélignac says the group’s openness to selection was simply one of many causes he determined it might be an excellent match for him.

“When I first started talking to Pierre-Antoine Capton in 2018, the range of what I was making was one of the things he appreciated,” says Sélignac, who signed with Mediawan on the night of the Cannes premiere for his manufacturing The Stronghold in 2021.

“I felt that with Pierre-Antoine and Elisabeth, I could be part of a group that liked what I did and had the same desire to live this adventure with me as I moved from films like The Stronghold to a film about depressed men in their swimming trunks (Sink or Swim), to an Algerian film that goes to Cannes (Omar La Fraise), to a film by Jeanne Harry (All Your Faces), which basically involves people sitting around the table and still manages to bring a million spectators, to a film about a giant fly by Quentin Dupieux (Mandible),” he says.

The producer remembers that movie business colleagues warned him that he risked shedding his independence by coming into Mediawan.

“I can only talk about my experiences, but I’ve never felt more independent,” he says. “I signed one year into the Covid pandemic, during which time I’d seen the conditions for the producing profession get tougher and producers who had been at the height of their success get into difficulty. It’s reassuring to be part of a group and at the same time have the freedom to follow my own editorial line, which has only one criterion: quality.”

Sélignac says that till now, the group has by no means intervened in any of his initiatives and there aren’t any constraints on who he can associate with on his initiatives, with Mediawan fortunately working throughout all distribution platforms and sources of finance. He does reveal, nevertheless, that he has a three-monthly assembly with d’Arvieu and her staff to debate his slate. 

“People said that this would be the thing that would most de-stabilize me, but not all — it’s fantastic. If I manage to convince 10 people that my projects are cool, when I arrive on the market to drum up finance, it’s like I’ve gone through a rehearsal. It’s always a pleasure to talk to them about what we’re working on.” 

Miserez, whose firm joined Mediawan in 2019 says being a part of the group permits him to give attention to his favourite a part of the job.

“Just because you achieved millions of entries with your last film, doesn’t make it easier to achieve the same with the next. Every film is a prototype, every time you embark on a production, it’s like you’re defending your title again,” he says.

“Being part of a larger, well-oiled system enables me to concentrate on the bits of the job I love most, working with the talent, producing films and developing scripts.”

After 15 years of manufacturing movies for theatrical launch, Miserez says being a part of Mediawan, which has an excellent larger presence in TV, has additionally helped him to maneuver into producing movies for conventional broadcasters in addition to the platforms.

Radar’s first TV movie Comme Mon Fils not too long ago drew 4.2 million viewers for its first broadcast on TF1, whereas the corporate is at the moment engaged on its first Original with Netflix and can be growing its first-ever sequence.

“It’s impossible to stay in this activity without producing for the broadcaster and platforms, and there is a savoir-faire within the Mediawan group that has enabled me to do this.”