Studiocanal has bought into three production companies, including Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sunny March TV.
The French studio has taken a 20 per cent stake in the Sherlock star’s company, in addition to a 20 per cent stake in Britain’s Urban Myth Films, which produces Atlantis along with a 33 per cent of Spain’s Bambu Producciones.
As part of the deals, Studiocanal will take over international sales to all of its new partners’ productions.
“It’s all about the European story here. We’re no longer French. Studiocanal gets 80 per cent of its revenues outside of France,” said Studiocanal COO Romain Bessi.
The investments take Studiocanal’s television portfolio to eight European production companies. The French company already owns Tandem and Red, and has minority stakes in Sam, Guilty Party and Final Twist.
“Being in the geographical centre of Europe we obviously saw local content performs better than US content on all the main TV networks in all the main countries,” said Didier Lupfer, Studiocanal CEO.
“We thought we could replicate what we have done on the movie side and go for high end local series and grow internationally.”
