In a UK film industry career spanning several decades, Alex Hamilton has veered towards genial self-effacement, while also speaking robustly on behalf of the companies that have given him leadership roles. But if ever there was a moment for ebullience by the Studiocanal executive, it would surely be now.
Announced as UK CEO at Studiocanal in April 2020, just as the Covid pandemic was shutting cinemas and upending distribution models, Hamilton has served nearly five years in the job. And it’s a role he is about to cede to Studiocanal UK managing director Kathryn Needham, while he himself is promoted to chief international officer, overseeing film distribution in all Studiocanal’s own territories: UK and Ireland, France, Germany, Austria, Benelux, Poland, Australia and New Zealand. The appointments take effect from March 1.
Meanwhile, Studiocanal is coming off a 2024 that delivered £72.6m at the UK and Ireland box office, yielding a 6.8% market share – a record share for the company. That number places the distributor in sixth place (behind US studios Disney, Universal, Warner Bros, Paramount and Sony), and ahead of a chasing pack of other independents (Entertainment Film, Black Bear, Lionsgate and Trafalgar), all with 2024 market shares in the 1.5% to 1.7% range.
On top of that, Studiocanal UK is anticipating the Bafta Film Awards this Sunday (February 16), where its films have a combined seven nominations: three for The Apprentice, two for The Outrun and two for Hard Truths. Back To Black star Marisa Abela is additionally nominated for the Bafta rising star award.
The past year has seen Studiocanal’s own British productions driving the company’s UK and Ireland box office success – in 2024 with Paddington In Peru (£36.2m), Back To Black (£12.3m) and Wicked Little Letters (£9.6m), and in 2025 with We Live In Time (£8.6m).
“I think we have to shout a bit louder that we’re a production home as well as a distribution home, because we’ve had large success with British films,” says Hamilton, speaking to Screen in person at Studiocanal’s HQ in London’s King’s Cross.
“I mentioned it at the Screen Summit last year, one of my bugbears with the UK is that British films in their home market over the past five years hadn’t been very successful. But we’ve managed to change that around in the last 12 months, and we’ve got some big British movies. It’s something that we need to build on.
“And there’s a certain irony – a French-headquartered company being one of the biggest investors in UK film. In fact, the biggest investor.”
Hamilton is just back from a Studiocanal internal presentation in Paris. “At the French box office, French movies last year took more than American movies,” he marvels. “That, to me, is a successful homegrown film industry, and that shows the power of what a local film industry can be. Can you imagine that happening in the UK?”
Studiocanal is “very good at local content in all of its territories”, says Hamilton, who specifically mentions France, Germany, Netherlands, Poland and UK. The executive will become even more familiar with that content in his new chief international officer role. Territory heads, who previously reported to Studiocanal CEO Anna Marsh will now report to Hamilton, who will continue to report to Marsh.
“The plain fact is that each of the territorial CEOs knows their territory better than I do,” comments Hamilton. “We hope we can bring our collective abilities and collective will to the ways we can operate, and find ways – can we have more movies together? Also within the greenlighting process and our productions, it should help streamline how we do that internally.”
Hamilton’s previous role as president, international, film at eOne gives him relevant experience. “I did everything outside of North America for eOne: Germany, Spain, the Benelux and Australia, in those days. So I’m not unfamiliar with the territories.”
Global success
Currently, it’s UK productions that are succeeding better globally for Studiocanal – and that’s likely to remain the case.
“Our local films can travel, because of the language, but also the talent – the talent that have a [global] profile,” he explains, going on to mention upcoming Second World War drama Pressure, starring Andrew Scott and Brendan Fraser, directed by Anthony Maras and produced by Working Title.
Or Studiocanal can acquire local rights on a UK film: just UK in the case of Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths and his upcoming untitled film; or the UK, Germany and France with Nora Fingscheidt’s The Outrun.
“It’s very audience-based,” explains Hamilton, with regard to the greenlight process. “We’re always talking about films that will work with audiences. Filmmakers, absolutely. But we always talk about: can we make the film work here? And then there’s an internal process that production goes through – they speak to the territory heads, and people have to put their numbers in. The numbers are going to help them get the movie made, or not.”
Hamilton gives the impression that he would have liked Studiocanal to have given bigger support to the next Mike Leigh film – but the lack of a known script or cast at financing stage created a hurdle internationally. “That’s where sometimes you butt up against what you can and can’t do, right? We could do the UK, but the other territories are going, ‘Well, it’s Mike Leigh, what’s he going to do?’ And it’s fair enough.”
Hamilton characterises recent box office projections from territory heads as “pretty good”. However, “Everybody at greenlight stage might have collectively underestimated We Live In Time.”
This project began when playwright and screenwriter Nick Payne was adapting existing material for Studiocanal and producers Sunnymarch, and then pitched an original romantic drama instead.
“We don’t have a long list of [original] romantic dramas that have done well at the box office lately,” says Hamilton. “And if you’re in a non-English language market, and We Live In Time has a scene in Kettering, and a guy works for Weetabix, and there’s cancer, and you’ve spent most of the time in [south London neighbourhood] Herne Hill, you don’t necessarily understand the international aspects of that.
“But it’s that classic thing: it was very locally specific and authentic, and that can sometimes travel.”
Balancing the perceived genre risks for We Live In Time were the talent elements – notably director John Crowley and lead actors Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh. And giving encouragement was A24 pre-buying US rights. Worldwide box office currently stands at $68.4m.
On the acquisition side, Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice likewise represented a risk – albeit a calculated one. “We said it’s a risk, but we also said, ‘You know what, it could be kind of fun.’”
Studiocanal initially came in for UK rights in 2022, and stayed with the project despite fluctuations in cast. Delays in the US release then created challenges, given the agreed need to release ahead of last November’s US presidential election.
“I wouldn’t ever use it as a case study in how to distribute a film because it was just too hectic and late, but it was a good [and successful] film.” UK and Ireland box office of £2.2m punched above its weight relative to $4m in the whole of North America.
Industry in flux
Since Hamilton joined Studiocanal, the UK distribution market has seen fluctuations. Pathe shut down its UK film division, Zygi Kamasa launched True Brit, and eOne shuttered UK theatrical distribution.
The exit of Pathe, where head of film Cameron McCracken honed gritty-but-feelgood true tales geared at older audiences, creates a gap in the market for those kinds of film.
“Wicked Little Letters is not a million miles removed from a Cameron movie,” comments Hamilton, who also mentions Warner Bros’ One Life, which grossed £10m at UK and Ireland cinemas, as another example.
“I still think that audience is there. I remember having a conversation with Cameron, we were just coming out of Covid, and he was saying, ‘Maybe that audience isn’t coming back.’ They are coming back, and they’ll continue to come back. And actually, they’re more reliable, you know who your audience are, and you can reach them in a conventional way.”
As for True Brit, “Zygi is very experienced, Zygi knows what he’s doing, and he’s got his furrow to plough.”
His next remark suggests some contrast between Studiocanal and rival UK companies, however.
“Studiocanal UK is supported by the group. They want us to have British film hits, and they’re putting their money where their mouth is. We’ve got the Canal+ infrastructure, we’ve got the territorial infrastructure, we’ve got the international sales, so it can theoretically be a one-stop shop.”
In other words, Studiocanal wants to be an attractive place for very good UK producers to take a very good project.
“Exactly. We absolutely want to be that, and I think we are that and have proven that we can be that, and made very successful movies that way. If you don’t qualify for the Universal model at Working Title, then there’s a way that can happen with Studiocanal.”
Hamilton concedes that subsequent to the pandemic, and also leading into it, Studiocanal became less prolific as a distributor of acquired titles – but that’s down to changes in the marketplace.
“There was that period, I’d call it a golden age, between 2010-11 to 2016-17, and one of the reasons for that was when Amazon and Netflix came into the market. So eOne and Studiocanal got deals with Amazon in the first pay window, and Lionsgate went with Netflix in the first pay window. They [the streamers] underwrote a more-aggressive acquisition strategy.
“Over the years, everyone’s moved more to a much more hybrid model – a production and acquisition model – which sounds riskier, but is a response to the market. There aren’t those projects.
“That five-year period that I talked about, Amazon and Netflix were not as aggressive in terms of having their own films. When they became aggressive in that space, that took a lot of stuff out that might have made its way into the independent space. And they [the streamers] weren’t subject to the same KPIs. They just weren’t. So it got more difficult there.”
For 2025, acquired titles include Mike Flanagan’s The Life Of Chuck, starring Tom Hiddleston and Karen Gillan (“the fact it won the Audience Award at Toronto suggests to me that there’s an audience for it”), and local films I Swear, from Nanny McPhee director Kirk Jones, and James McAvoy’s feature directing debut California Schemin’, based on the same true story that inspired 2013 documentary The Great Hip Hop Hoax.
Studiocanal productions include Blueprint Pictures’ Huntington, from John Patton Ford’s 2014 Black List script, which was inspired by Ealing comedy – and Studiocanal catalogue title – Kind Hearts And Coronets.
The film, starring Glen Powell, is an example of the company’s stated intention to exploit its rich catalogue where opportunities arise, although Huntington originated outside Studiocanal.
“There’s a nice story about that,” says Hamilton. “Studiocanal were perhaps going to take legal action. Then Ron [Halpern, executive vice president of global production] met with John Patton Ford, and they got on very well, and they said, ‘Let’s make the movie.’”
Taking credit
Since his arrival at Studiocanal, Hamilton has taken executive producer credits only twice – on sequel The Railway Children Return (2022) and low-budget shark thriller Something In The Water (2024).
“Those two were on the slate when I got here,” comments Hamilton, an implication being that he took executive producer credit on a couple of projects at the start of his tenure, but quickly pivoted away.
“I personally couldn’t care less about credits,” he adds. “I much prefer, if we have a good slate, people should get credits when they really do make a key decision on the movie. I’m a cog in a chain, I’m helping things along. I’m not saying that with false modesty. My favourite credit, and I bet you can’t find it on IMDb, is I’ve got a thanks on [Ken Loach’s] Sorry We Missed You, next to the three-legged-dog.”
Recent UK productions have included executive producer credits for Halpern, Marsh and the key Studiocanal production executive who worked on the film: Joe Naftalin (Back To Black, Wicked Little Letters, We Live In Time) or Dan MacRae (Paddington In Peru), who are respectively SVP production and development and SVP global production.
Follow that bear
Nearly half of Studiocanal’s 6.8% UK and Ireland box office market share in 2024 was contributed by Paddington In Peru. And the franchise is, in Hamilton’s words, “the family jewel” of the company.
With £36.2m in UK and Ireland cinemas, the film has fallen a little short of its two predecessors (£38m and £42.6m), and was omitted at the Bafta nominations, to Hamilton’s dismay.
“I would say that with the [introduction of the] children’s and family category this year, that does seem strange,” he says. “Then you look at the animated feature category, and it’s basically the same films.”
Regarding the slight box office decline from the previous films, “In 2017 when Paddington 2 was released, it took 2.73% of the overall box office that year. Paddington In Peru took 3.16% of the overall box office in 2024. So actually, Paddington hasn’t gone smaller, it’s gotten bigger. The market has gotten smaller. And that’s more fundamentally a challenge for us in the UK. We are £300m down on the annual box office where it was in 2017, ’18, ’19.”
Hamilton’s new role at Studiocanal will see him additionally oversee the Studiocanal Kids & Family business, including the Paddington IP – of which Canal+ owns all except the Michael Bond books.
“We’ve had a lot of talk about in terms of – it’s a horrible expression – franchise management and IP strategy. It’s an ongoing thing, and there’ll be many of us involved in it. And there’s some very exciting prospective things that could happen with the IP overall.”
As regards a fourth film, “It’s in what might be called a very preliminary idea stage, but we haven’t sat on our hands.”
Sony releases Paddington In Peru in North America on February 14, and there are other territories yet to release, including South Korea, Italy, Spain and Japan. Worldwide box office currently stands at $108m.
“At some point this year we’ll all get together. Where are we with the Paddington movies? Where are we the Paddington TV series? Where are we with Paddington IP?”
Despite owning merchandising rights, Hamilton is clear that a fourth film will be idea-driven, and not greenlighted to give a fresh boost to retail sales.
“I think the thing that people can recognise about the Paddington movies is that they’ve always been at the heart of everything. If there is a fourth Paddington movie, it’s not going to be driven by: can we sell more bears?”
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