French media company Mediawan has taken a majority stake in Brad Pitt’s production house Plan B Entertainment as the group bolsters its English-language production efforts with new division Mediawan US.
Following speculation about the deal on Friday (December 9), Mediawan issued a statement confirming the news which said the two companies “have entered into a definitive agreement for Mediawan to buy a significant stake in Plan B”.
It added: “By joining forces with Plan B, Mediawan expands beyond its core European markets into the US.”
Mediawan CEO and co-founder Pierre-Antoine Capton, who confirmed the deal on social media, added in the statement: “This partnership will allow us to create a unique artistic link between Europe and the United States through which we and Plan B will develop premium independent content, providing a global platform on which the world’s greatest talent can continue to thrive.”
Founded in 2015 by Capton, Xavier Niel and Matthieu Pigasse and backed by financial partners including KKR and Atwater Capital, Mediawan continues to expand its global footprint with an increasing number of European production houses under its wing including Lagardère Studios, Makever, the French TV division of EuropaCorp and Mon Voisin Production, the outfit behind breakout global series Call My Agent!.
Mediawan also owns several French feature production companies such as Dimitri Rassam’s Chapter 2, who are behind the upcoming big-budget, two-part The Three Musketeers feature set for 2023, and Hugo Selignac’s Chi-Fou-Mi, which made Cedric Jimenez’s November, one of France’s top films of 2022.
Mediawan also recently entered into a joint venture with Leonine Studios to acquire a 51% stake in the UK’s Drama Republic (The English), and formed another joint venture with Oscar-winning director Florian Zeller (The Son, The Father) and Federica Sainte-Rose to launch LA-based production outfit Blue Morning Pictures.
Mediawan said its investment in Plan B will be made via the new entity Mediawan US, which has been established to coordinate the company’s activities and future developments in the US and will hold stakes in Plan B as well as Blue Morning Pictures.
Plan B, founded in 2001 by Pitt (alongside then partner Jennifer Aniston) and run by president Dede Gardner and co-president Jeremy Kleiner, has produced a string of notable titles including current awards contenders She Said for Universal, Women Talking for MGM’s Orion Pictures and Blonde for Netflix, as well as best picture Oscar winners 12 Years A Slave, The Departed, and Moonlight, and Eat Pray Love, and World War Z.
In a statement, the Plan B partners called the deal “the next chapter in our evolution” and added that they “pledge to continue producing new content for audiences everywhere. With the innovative, artistic and producer-centric platform Mediawan has built, we open a window to an even greater number of storytellers, both established masters and the emerging voices that have always excited us”.
They added that the deal will “maximize our reach toward an increasingly global audience with a broad range of films and television series across all platforms, genres, and mediums”.
The value of the deal was not dislosed but the Financial Times valued Plan B Entertainment at more than $300m.
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