Studiocanal fires up genre partnership with French outfit WTFilms

Studiocanal has secured a partnership with French production company WTFilms (What The Films) that will focus on genre films with the development, production and distribution of French-language titles, and European content with global appeal.

The agreement speaks to Studiocanal’s growing ambition to increase its footprint in the genre space, following UK-based former acquisitions, development and production executive Jed Benedict’s return to Studiocanal to launch a genre label.

Studiocanal’s French production team will work together with Benedict on the WTFilms partnership and development slate.

The partnership, signed at the end of February, comes off the back of a collaboration on Xavier Gens’ Fantasia premiere Farang, released by IFC Films in the US, under the international title of Mayhem!. It has taken around $1.5m at the global box office.*

Studiocanal and WTFilms will collaborate for a minimum of two years, with Studiocanal involved as a co-producer and distributor on WTFilms projects across action, thriller, science fiction and horror.

WTFilms was founded in 2012 by Dimitri Stephanides and Gregory Chambet, becoming the first French international sales company specialising in genre films.

*Figure from Box Office Mojo.

A version of this article originally appeared on our sister site Screen