The French film and series production group Mediawan announced on Friday evening that it had taken control of the Hollywood production house Plan B Entertainment, co-founded and chaired by American star Brad Pitt.
“This acquisition of a majority stake is carried out partly in Mediawan shares, thus leading the three co-presidents of Plan B, Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, to also become shareholders of Mediawan”the group said in a statement.
Selon Mediawan, ce “unprecedented partnership” made between two producers in Europe and the United States “marks the deployment of Mediawan in the American market”.
The group, which created the production company Blue Morning Pictures in September with director Florian Zeller, will bring together its activities across the Atlantic in a new dedicated entity.
Mediawan, who is behind the successes of the film Bac Nord or the series Ten percentnow employs 1,500 people, for a turnover of around one billion euros.
“It’s an exceptional chance to be able to develop Mediawan alongside Plan B, the finest independent production company in the US.“, commented the CEO of Mediawan, Pierre-Antoine Capton, quoted in the press release.
Founded in the early 2000s in Beverly Hills (California), Plan B has produced several successful films including Infiltrators by Martin Scorsese, The Tree of Life by Terrence Malick, or even The Big Short by Adam McKay, and has been nominated for the Best Picture Oscar 8 times in the past 10 years.
“We had been talking about it for a while with my associates Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner. I often say that the three of us are a rock band that plays in a garage. But our garage got a little too smallexplains Brad Pitt in an interview with Parisian. Cinema is internationalizing. Talents are emerging all over the world. For our future projects, we must look outside the United States. With Mediawan, “we have the same conception of how to produce films and series”, added the star.
The operation, in which the shareholders of Mediawan (KKR, Bpifrance, MACSF and Société Générale) are taking part via a capital increase, values Plan B Entertainment at more than 300 million dollars and will be carried out in several installments, according to the Financial Times.
Founded in 2015 by Pierre-Antoine Capton, Xavier Niel and Matthieu Pigasse, the Mediawan group is present in the production, distribution and broadcasting of films, series and streaming programs. It now brings together more than 60 production labels, gradually acquired in France and Europe.