Mediawan and Plan B’s progressive partnership will gasoline international ambitions to unveil a compelling slate of numerous initiatives throughout movie, tv, audio, and extra

PARIS and HOLLYWOOD, Calif., Dec. 9, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Mediawan, a number one unbiased premium content material studio in Europe led by Pierre-Antoine Capton, and Plan B Entertainment, an award-winning US primarily based manufacturing firm co-founded and led by Brad Pitt, together with co-presidents Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, announce in the present day that they’ve entered right into a definitive settlement for Mediawan to amass a major stake in Plan B.

By becoming a member of forces with Plan B, Mediawan expands past its core European markets into the US.

Plan B’s spectacular physique of movie work consists of, The Tree of Life, Eat Pray Love, World War Z, 12 Years a Slave, Selma, The Big Short, Moonlight, Okja, and Minari. Recent movie initiatives embrace, Andrew Dominik’s Blonde for Netflix, Maria Schrader’s She Said for Universal Pictures, Sarah Polley’s Women Talking for MGM’s Orion Pictures, Bong Joon-Ho’s Mickey 17 for Warner Brothers, David Michod’s forthcoming movie Wizards for A24, Cory Finley’s forthcoming Landscape With Invisible Hand for MGM, and RaMell Ross’s The Nickel Boys for MGM’s Orion Pictures.

Plan B has additionally lately ramped up its tv work with a variety of initiatives together with BAFTA and Peabody-winning The Underground Railroad, the Josh Brolin-starrer Outer Range for Amazon, Clea DuVall and Tegan & Sara’s High School for Amazon’s Freevee, Lego Masters for FOX, a second season of Feud in partnership with Ryan Murphy for FX, and the upcoming Three Body Problem, from David Benioff and D.B. Weiss and Alex Woo, for Netflix.

Mediawan is likely one of the premiere unbiased European studios producing audiovisual content material and have movies. Its best-known titles embrace International Emmy award-wining Call My Agent! starring Camille Cottin for FranceTV and Netflix, Hugo Blick’s The English starring Emily Blunt for BBC and Amazon, Oscar and Golden Globes nominated The life Ahead starring Sophia Lorren for Netflix, French blockbusters Novembre starring Jean Dujardin and the Stronghold for Studiocanal, That Dirty Black Bag starring Douglas Booth and Dominic Cooper for AMC, in addition to a robust line up with forthcoming Django for Canal+ and Sky, One Day for Netflix, The Three Musketeers for Pathé, and Miraculous the film with Zag.

Story continues

The firm was co-founded by Pierre-Antoine Capton, Xavier Niel, and Matthieu Pigasse, and is supported by its founders and its strategic companions, together with KKR and Atwater Capital, which is led by Vania Schlogel.

As leaders in unbiased manufacturing in Europe and the United States, this unprecedented partnership between Mediawan and Plan B will create helpful synergies throughout expertise improvement and IP acquisition and proceed to construct on an already sturdy content material slate with a glance to an more and more international viewers. Plan B’s constant capability to work with top-tier expertise from internationally, coupled with the unique and current IP they’ve dropped at the massive and small display, will, together with Mediawan’s equally established relationships and now this strategic funding, domesticate a larger variety of immensely gifted creators and premium initiatives for a world viewership.

“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. We would like to thank Brad, Dede, and Jeremy for their trust and recognition of the world-class content emanating from our work in Europe,” mentioned Pierre-Antoine Capton, CEO and Co-Founder of Mediawan.

Plan B companions Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, and Jeremy Kleiner, added: “We have loved working together for nearly two-decades and are incredibly excited about our future. As we enter the next chapter in our evolution, we are excited at the possibilities this partnership affords as we maximize our reach toward an increasingly global audience with a broad range of films and television series across all platforms, genres, and mediums. For our current partner studios, along with those we look forward to working with in the future, we 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.”

The acquisition by Mediawan is in line with the group’s growth technique past Europe into English-speaking markets to develop worldwide productions and produce collectively the world’s biggest abilities wherever they need to work. A technique, supported by Mediawan’s shareholders: KKR, Atwater Capital, Bpifrance, MACSF, and Société Générale, that each one take part within the financing of this operation by way of a capital improve.

The three companions in Plan B additionally enter the capital of Mediawan as a part of the acquisition.

The funding in Plan B shall be made through a newly created entity, Mediawan US, which can coordinate Mediawan’s actions and future developments within the US. The Board of Mediawan US shall be chaired by Vania Schlogel, with Pierre-Antoine Capton as CEO.

Mediawan US will maintain important stakes in Plan B in addition to in Blue Morning Pictures, the manufacturing firm launched in 2022 by Mediawan with Oscar profitable filmmakers Florian Zeller and Federica Sainte-Rose.

Vania Schlogel, Founder and Managing Partner at Atwater Capital, and future Chairwoman of the Mediawan US Board, mentioned: “Plan B has an exceptional track record of supporting and celebrating remarkable global storytellers. For a number of years now, I’ve been fortunate enough to witness first-hand the vision of Pierre-Antoine Capton and the wider Mediawan team as they’ve built one of the most creative and dynamic independent production-distribution groups in the world. I can’t think of a better partner for Plan B as it enters this exciting new phase of growth.” 

Philipp Freise, Partner and Co-head of European Private Equity at KKR and Franziska Kayser, Managing Director at KKR, commented: “Under the leadership of Pierre-Antoine, Mediawan has established itself at the center of quality content production in Europe. Building leading businesses in this sector has long been a vision for KKR, with the take private of Mediawan as well as the founding of LEONINE Studios. We are delighted to see Mediawan and Plan B join forces to continue our mission of creating the leading artist-centric global independent content platform, the first of its kind on such an international scale. We welcome Brad, Jeremy, and Dede to the shareholdership and look forward to collaborating with them to continue this unique success story.”

Moelis & Company served as lead monetary advisor, Willkie Farr & Gallagher served as authorized advisor, and CAA served as advisors to Plan B. Brillstein Entertainment served as advisor to Brad Pitt. Centerview Partners acted as monetary advisors and Latham & Watkins acted as authorized advisor to Mediawan. BNP Paribas served as advisor to the cofounders of Mediawan. Financial phrases of the deal weren’t disclosed.

About Mediawan

Created in late 2015 by Pierre-Antoine Capton, Xavier Niel and Matthieu Pigasse, Mediawan is likely one of the primary unbiased European studios producing audiovisual content material. The Group brings collectively best-in-class abilities in audiovisual creation by working on all the worth chain: manufacturing of drama, unscripted, documentary, cinema and animated authentic content material, due to over 60 manufacturing labels in France, Germany (partnership with LEONINE Studios since 2020), England, Italy, Spain, the United-States, the Netherlands, Finland and Senegal (Mediawan Studios), distribution of audiovisual content material (Mediawan Rights, LS Distribution and Telmondis Distribution) and publishing of channels and digital companies (Mediawan Thematics) in addition to the event and manufacturing of digital content material (Mediawan Digital). Contacts: Juleanna Glover, juleanna@ridgelywalsh.com, +1 202 288 2076; Quitterie Lemasson, qlemasson@mediawan.eu, +33785731182;

About Plan B Entertainment

Headed by Brad Pitt and co-presidents Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, Plan B Entertainment is a long-standing movie and tv manufacturing firm. Their movie work consists of: The Tree of Life, Eat Pray Love, World War Z, 12 Years a Slave, Selma, The Big Short, Moonlight, Beautiful Boy, If Beale Street Could Talk, Vice, Ad Astra, The King, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Irresistible, Kajillionaire, Minari, a reimagination of Father of the Bride, and Blonde. Alongside their filmography, their acclaimed tv work consists of: The Underground Railroad, Outer Range, High School, Paper Girls, The Third Day, Feud: Bette and Joan, The Normal Heart, Sweetbitter, and The OA. Their acclaimed tv work consists of the Peabody Award profitable and Emmy-nominated The Underground Railroad, Outer Range, High School, Paper Girls, BAFTA-nominated The Third Day, Emmy-nominated Feud: Bette and Joan, Emmy-winning The Normal Heart, Sweetbitter, and The OA. The firm has a first-look characteristic movie manufacturing cope with the Warner Bros. Pictures Group, and a second-look options deal at MGM. Their total first-look deal for tv is with Amazon Prime Video. Contact: Anna Yang, a.yang@planb-la.com

About Atwater Capital

Focused completely on the Media and Entertainment sectors, Atwater was based with the imaginative and prescient of uniting the dear inventive elements of evaluating investments and rising corporations with deep operational and monetary experience underneath one roof and one group. Going towards the established order of historically segregating these crucial actions, Atwater seeks to extract the synergies of making use of quantitative rigor to inventive technique on behalf of our portfolio corporations and stakeholders.

Atwater brings a monitor document of excellence in operational and monetary technique to be able to ship tangible outcomes. Whether by way of optimizing operational processes, unlocking enterprise improvement alternatives, delivering an in depth community of influencers to create genuine messaging, or digitizing away from ineffective and capital-intensive conventional branding actions — Atwater brings nimble and disruptive methods to our investments. Contact: Lindsey Nevarez, ln@atwater-capital.com

About KKR

KKR is a number one international funding agency that gives different asset administration in addition to capital markets and insurance coverage options. KKR goals to generate engaging funding returns by following a affected person and disciplined funding method, using world-class folks, and supporting development in its portfolio corporations and communities. KKR sponsors funding funds that spend money on personal fairness, credit score and actual belongings and has strategic companions that handle hedge funds. KKR’s insurance coverage subsidiaries supply retirement, life and reinsurance merchandise underneath the administration of Global Atlantic Financial Group. References to KKR’s investments could embrace the actions of its sponsored funds and insurance coverage subsidiaries. For extra details about KKR & Co. Inc. (NYSE: KKR), please go to KKR’s web site at www.kkr.com and on Twitter @KKR_Co. Contact: Annabel Arthur, annabel.arthur@kkr.com, +44 7554 919 491

View authentic content material to obtain multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mediawan-and-plan-b-entertainment-join-forces-to-create-global-production-platform-301699650.html

SOURCE Mediawan