After a busy year that’s seen the Canal+ Group complete a wave of acquisitions across two continents, Anna Marsh, the CEO of Studiocanal and the deputy CEO and chief content officer for Canal+, insisted such moves have been instrumental in strengthening the position of the French media giant at a time of unprecedented industry disruption.
“It’s really important to have a fresh perspective. People that are going to challenge the status quo. Because the business is moving so fast,” said the New Zealand-born exec, who appeared in conversation at Rome’s MIA Market on Wednesday with MIA head Gaia Tridente.
“The audience is so tough that we constantly need to be looking at ourselves in the mirror. AI is emerging right now. We’ve got enormous consolidation in the U.S. Looking at the different ways that the borders between pay TV and free TV are colliding,” Marsh continued.
“There are so many questions to ask. Nobody has all the answers. When we’re able to expand, when we’re able to acquire new companies and enter into new territories, it’s truly enriching.”
Marsh was speaking in Rome on the heels of GREENLit, MIA’s flagship drama showcase, which offered an exclusive first look at four upcoming international series, among them “Gucci: Game Over,” a six-episode miniseries based on Allegra Gucci’s memoir that’s co-produced by Sky Studios and Lucky Red and distributed internationally by Studiocanal.
Marsh praised the series as a testament to “the culture, the courage, the history that Europe’s been blessed with,” while insisting to the assembled industry professionals in the room, “I think Europe has a great future when it comes to storytelling. And the depth of the stories that we can tell here is absolutely endless.”
The Canal+ Group acquired a majority stake in Lucky Red, the Rome-based distribution and production company, in February. It was the latest in a series of moves made by the French media conglomerate to expand its growing footprint. Earlier this year, the group acquired a 34-percent stake in UGC, the Paris-headquartered film studio that operates one of France’s leading cinema chains, and also completed a $2 billion takeover of South African pay-TV company MultiChoice.
That move helped to boost the Canal+ subscriber base to north of 40 million, more than half of whom are English-speaking, thanks to MultiChoice’s reach across the African continent.
“That just opens a wealth of opportunity,” said Marsh, who touted recent Canal+ and Studiocanal projects like “The Road Home,” an apartheid-era drama starring Cynthia Erivo, Thabo Rametsi and Guy Pearce which recently wrapped shooting in South Africa, and “Shadow Has Fallen,” a Canal+ original action series, whose third season wrapped in Cape Town.
“That’s a really strategic part of the group’s focus right now,” she said, of the company’s Africa expansion. “And you can really see how Studiocanal is at the heart of that strategy. If we, as Canal+, enter a new market with so much potential as South Africa, we have to have a strong content strategy.”
Another pillar in that strategy is Studiocanal Stories, a specialty label launched in 2024 that’s dedicated to book adaptations. Pointing to the blockbuster “Paddington” franchise as the company’s “biggest, most successful IP” to date — and one that “started as a book,” as she noted — Marsh stressed how optioning existing IP “allows us to relax a little bit” because it comes with a built-in audience.
“It does give confidence,” she said, “and it does allow us to put more money and more data behind the decision-making.”
Of course, when it comes to decision-making, some of the old metrics still apply — chief among them talent. That was certainly the case with “What Happens at Night,” an upcoming psychological horror adapted from Peter Cameron’s 2020 novel that’s produced by Apple Studios in partnership with Studiocanal.
Directed by Martin Scorsese — “one of the greatest cineastes of all time,” according to Marsh — and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, Marsh said the film is as close as one can get in these uncertain times to what she described as “a bit of a slam dunk.”
Still, nothing is guaranteed, with Marsh admitting, “It is harder and harder to hit the bull’s eye.” “Audiences are becoming more and more difficult and their standards are constantly raising,” she said. Especially with Gen Z audiences, “there’s just no room for error.”
The 12th edition of Rome’s MIA Market runs Oct. 19 – 23.
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