It is currently financing and pre-sellingMonsieur Aznavourwith Tahar Rahim.
Playtime partner Sebastien Beffa will serve on the Vuelta management board.
We sat down with company co-founder and co-CEO Nicolas Brigaud-Robert to discuss the move.
Sébastien Beffa and Nicolas Brigaud-RobertCourtesy
DEADLINE:Why did this move make sense for Playtime now?
NICOLAS BRIGAUD-ROBERT: Weve been working on this for more than a year.
DEADLINE:What does it mean for your existing backers?
The Orchard
BRIGAUD-ROBERT: They are rolling over.
Theyre staying with us.
We have two French backers: French bank BPI and a VC company Seventure Partners.
The important thing is we maintain our autonomy.
Our company will be owned by the new startup but we own that startup.
BRIGAUD-ROBERT: There wont be a significant change.
We move from having passive investors to having a more active partnership.
Everything below Playtime stays as was.
Its whats above Playtime that changes.
We agreed on that.
We want to work together without having must carry deals.
We are incentivized to work together.
We all remember ventures like Indie Circle.
The idea was for distribution companies to team up together with Celluloid Dreams as the central seller.
It didnt last because some people felt obliged to take on certain titles.
And there wasnt a central holding company.
We dont want to emulate that.
DEADLINE:What will it mean for your acquisitions and your slate?
By joining with others we respect we think we can do that.
The key word isnt bigger but more diverse.
We have had some big movies, but we need a few more either English or foreign-language.
We had two films in Competition at Cannes this year, but we dont have any at Venice.
Maybe we could have two in Venice as well.
Maybe we pick up two series a year rather than one.
But the secret sauce is intel shared intel.
When you have knowledgeable partners and share information its valuable.
Were like each others agents.
The big unknown for us is TV.
We are keen to have a go at gap finance a series and work on more local TV.
DEADLINE:How does this move position you in France?
BRIGAUD-ROBERT: It makes things more open to us on the co-producing side, especially in TV.
Were starting a co-production with SquareOne right now on a remake of a Korean film.
Were controlling the assets of this company.
Its a group of likeminded European companies.
This isnt film Groupon.
The trick is that weve known each other a long time and were all like-minded.
Playtime has been a profitable company for 26 years.
We could have continued on that track but this move speaks to our ambition.
