France’s UGC Takes Stakes in Producers of ’10 Percent,’ ‘Oussekine’
UGC, the long-running French movie studio whose greatest hits embody “Amelie Poulain,” has profitable branched into TV sequence by buying stakes in a flurry of talent-driven manufacturing firms equivalent to Itineraire Productions (“HPI”) and Headline Photos (“Name My Agent!’s” British remake) within the U.Okay. Choosing a special method to Gaumont’s or massive media teams like…
UGC, the long-running French movie studio whose greatest hits embody “Amelie Poulain,” has profitable branched into TV sequence by buying stakes in a flurry of talent-driven manufacturing firms equivalent to Itineraire Productions (“HPI”) and Headline Photos (“Name My Agent!’s” British remake) within the U.Okay.
Choosing a special method to Gaumont’s or massive media teams like Mediawan, the corporate has been constructing its label UGC Collection as a coalition of independently-ran manufacturing firms underneath the management of Laurence Lenica, a veteran UGC government, and Franck Calderon, a widely known author, producer and former boss of TF1 Productions.
To this point, UGC Collection includes six banners. Together with Headline Photos and Itineraire Productions, these embody Henri Debeurne’s Subsequent Episode whose credit soak up “Christmas Move” for Netflix and “J’ai tué mon mari” for NBCU and TF1; UGC Fiction, which Calderon is main with Karine Evrard and Sophie Exbrayat, and which has delivered the rankings hit ”Jacqueline Sauvage, It was Him or Me”, and most not too long ago “La Traque” for TF1. The opposite banners are Aura Productions, newly-launched by Sarah Aknine and Aurélien Molas, and Nabi Productions which is led by Clément Birnbaum and Joachim Nahum. By means of this technique, UGC has diversified its actions whereas avoiding the prices of launching firms from scratch.
“All these firms are pushed by passionate creatives and producers, they usually have solid their very own identification and complementary editorial traces,” stated Lenica, who has labored intently with UGC’s managing director Brigitte Maccioni for over 20 years. She stated UGC Collection’ function is “primarily to supply them with fairness financing, some money circulation to permit them to have a aggressive edge in a extremely aggressive setting.” Since UGC doesn’t have a global gross sales division, producers may also work with third-party gross sales forces.
Lenica identified the TV enterprise has historically relied much less on fairness financing than the movie business however “issues are altering and TV producers more and more want some money circulation to bankroll their improvement earlier than getting TV channels or streamers concerned.”
Calderon identified the market has turn out to be so consolidated that it’s turn out to be key for unbiased producers to band collectively and profit from some monetary backing. He added that UGC Collection additionally supplied producers with authorized backing to assist them navigate the complexity of offers.
Headline Photos is the London-based manufacturing firm behind the Emmy-winning drama sequence “The Man within the Excessive Fortress” for Amazon Prime, in addition to the Irish crime thriller “Kin,” produced with Bron Studios for RTE and AMC, and “Ten %”, the remake of the French TV hit sequence “Name My Agent!” which is about to premiere on Amazon Prime and AMC Plus subsequent month.
Headline Photos’ government producer Christian Baute stated UGC Collection has given the corporate “extra flexibility, the monetary ressources to signal skills, choices, fee scripts and a few stability.” He stated “at a time when everyone seems to be chasing IPs,” having an ally like UGC Collection which may herald some money circulation was a necessity.
“In a way, now we have remained unbiased as a result of we’re not tied to a TV community and we don’t should feed a gross sales pipeline as is the case while you’re tied to firms like Fremantle or All3Media,” stated Baute, who generally works out of UGC Collection’ headquarters in Neuilly, simply exterior of Paris.
Itinéraire Productions, led by Anthony Lancret and Pierre Laugier, is behind HPI,” the massively standard cop TV sequence starring Audrey Fleurot (“Intouchables”), and Disney Star Plus’ first French unique scripted mini-series, “Oussekine” which is able to debut on the streamer later this yr. “Ousseking” is impressed by the true story of Malik Oussekine, a sufferer of police brutality in France.
“HPI,” in the meantime, has been offered by Newen Content material to greater than 50 markets and broke report rankings on TF1. The second season of the sequence simply premiered at Collection Mania on Saturday.
Laugier stated it made sense for his outfit to associate with UGC as a result of it has “robust and long-standing movie tradition” bringing collectively “entrepreneurs and creatives,” and has turn out to be “a model related to high quality.” One other facet that proved essential for Laugier is the liberty that UGC Collection provides them whereas offering with “a construction.”
Some synergies will even quickly emerge out of UGC Collection as some producers have began collaborated on frequent tasks. Itinéraire Productions and Headline Photos have initiated improvement on a sequence that can shoot between London and Paris.