Italian producers Mario Gianani and Lorenzo Mieli, each of whom has a movie in the Cannes competition — Kirill Serebrennikov’s “Limonov” and Paolo Sorrentino’s “Parthenope,” respectively — are entering the Mediawan fold after recently exiting Fremantle to jointly form a new independent outfit.
Mediawan, the production powerhouse that now comprises more than 85 labels around the world, is in the process of acquiring a 51% majority stake in their new Rome-based Our Films company under a deal that will officially close in September, according to several sources.
Gianani and Mieli, who declined to be interviewed for this article, are still closely tied to Fremantle even after exiting their Fremantle-owned banners, Wildside and The Apartment, earlier this year. As previously announced, they have a co-production deal with Fremantle under which they will continue to shepherd a number of projects that they had in the Fremantle pipeline. These include Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer,” starring Daniel Craig; a new untitled Rome-set Kung Fu movie by Gabriele Mainetti; Pablo Larraín’s Maria Callas biopic “Maria” starring Angelina Jolie; plus the TV series “M. The Son of the Century” by Joe Wright, which chronicles Benito Mussolini’s rise to power; and Netflix serial killer show “Il Mostro” by genre specialist Stefano Sollima.
Wildside and The Apartment, also as previously announced, will both continue to operate as separate Fremantle labels, respectively headed by producers Sonia Rovai and Annamaria Morelli.
Mediawan’s acquisition of a majority stake in Gianani and Mieli’s Our Films comes amid a larger consolidation in the Italian market that is expected to see Mediawan – which also owns prominent production company Palomar – further grow its Italian footprint guided by Palomar chief Carlo Degli Esposti, who was just appointed a member of its board of supervisors and strategic committee with a mandate to explore the purchase of other Italian companies.
Mediawan is now poised to make Italy a key territory, similarly to Fremantle which, besides Wildside and The Apartment, also owns Italian TV companies Lux Vide and Stand by Me and film and TV company Picomedia.
Mediawan, which was co-founded by producer Pierre-Antoine Capton with investment banker Mathieu Pigasse and telecom billionaire Xavier Niel in late 2015, most recently announced its acquisition of leading German distribution-production company Leonine.
The combined group comprises Brad Pitt’s Plan B (“Bob Marley: One Love”) in the U.S., France’s On Entertainment (“Miraculous”),Hugo Selignac’s Chi-Fou-Mi (“Beating Hearts”) and Dimitri Rassam’s Chapter 2, as well as Drama Republic and Misfits Entertainment (“Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story”) in the U.K. and Wiedemann & Berg Film (“The Lives of Others”) and BeetzBros Film Production (“Eternal You”) in German-speaking territories.
