Fast-growing European studio Anton Studios is taking a minority position as a partner and investor in The Creatives. The group, first founded as a long-term strategic partnership in 2021, is moving into a solidified company, with a jointly owned holding structure. The new model will see The Creatives become the first European-rooted producer-owned group of its scale in film and television, with Romain Bessi remaining as CEO.
The Creatives consists of some of the leading production companies in Europe, as well as one each in Israel and the U.S. They are Haut et Court and Unité in France, Komplizen and Razor Film in Germany, the U.K.’s Good Chaos, Lemming Film in Netherlands and Belgium, Maipo Film in Norway, Spiro in Israel and the U.S.’s Masha.
Led by Sébastien Raybaud, Anton’s projects include “In Love,” starring George Clooney and Annette Bening; “Pumping Black,” starring Jonathan Bailey and Natalie Portman; and the crime thriller “My Darling California,” featuring Jessica Chastain, Chris Evan, Chris Pine, Mikey Madison and Don Cheadle.
Anton’s investment in The Creatives reinforces the financial strength of the group and provides additional access to equity financing. The Creatives will be formally created at closing, following technical steps expected to take a few months.
Bessi brings three decades of experience in production, distribution and broadcasting, having built two international studios in Newen Studios/Studio TF1, which he led as chairman and CEO within the TF1 Group until 2024, and Studiocanal, where he served as group COO. Prior to this, he served as CFO for the Canal+ channels in France and CEO for Canal+ in the Nordics.
Speaking with Variety, Bessi said this consolidated company was “always the point.”
“Five years ago, all of these producers decided that, because they didn’t want anyone to buy them out and they wanted to share their expertise and contacts, they would create a form of club, where they would informally meet every month and co-produce together,” he added. “They have now been doing this very successfully for years, and they decided that, because it was working so well, they would become a group.”
“But they didn’t know how to do it, which is when they reached out to me,” he said. “Of course, creating a group costs money, so during the last year and a half I was structuring the group and looking for an investor to bring some money into the holding company.”
Bessi said it took over a year to find Anton. The Creatives had several other offers, but they had a number of strict demands for whoever would come in as a financial partner. “We wanted a European investor, not only because of the perception, but also because of regulation. They had to be European; they had to be someone who understands the industry—meaning that you can have good years and bad years, and you need to take some risk. That was very important.”
Finding the investor was “not so easy,” because the model built by The Creatives is “very new in the industry.” All 17 producers in the group are shareholders and control the group. “It’s very unique. Usually, you have one person or company who gets the shares and the control. Because of that, some investors were a bit concerned about the governance of the group,” Bessi said.
“We wanted someone who would agree to take a minority stake and would not require distribution or sales,” he added. “Then, of course, there was a valuation, which was important for the producers, and we wanted someone who would respect that valuation. Lastly, we needed someone we knew, and I knew Anton very well because it was created 15 years ago, to implement a state financing deal for Studiocanal. At that time, I was the CEO.”
In the end, the producers decided in favor of Anton. Now, all agreements are signed, and The Creatives are “ready to go.”
By “ready to go,” Bessi means realizing the group’s vision of becoming the leading “one-stop-shop” production company in Europe for major distributors and streamers. The exec sees The Creatives as the place where these companies can have access to “elevated content and festival movies and series.”
“When they come to us, they suddenly have access to many talents, many projects out of many European countries,” he said. “It offers a wide diversity of very good foreign content. We have the scale of the group now. It’s strong enough and financially reliable, so it can be a very interesting one-stop shop for major companies instead of them going country by country to work with these leading producers.”
“Our goal is to accelerate and enhance the model so we can allow the producers to develop the project they want to develop, be ready, take more risks, gather the best talent and use each other’s connections,” he emphasized. “We want these people to do what they do best: to produce and attract talent.”
Work produced by The Creatives has drawn over 140 awards at major festivals and awards ceremonies worldwide, including a Cannes Palme d’Or and a Venice Grand Jury Prize, alongside multiple Academy Award nominations and wins.
Signature lead-produced titles include Komplizen’s Oscar-nominated “Toni Erdmann”; Haut et Court’s Palme d’Or winner “The Class”; Good Chaos’ “Sisu” films, which both topped global streaming charts; Spiro’s Venice Grand Jury Prize winner “Foxtrot”; Razor Film’s Oscar-nominated “Waltz With Bashir”; Maipo Film’s Canneseries winner “A Better Man”; Unité’s multi-César winner “Souleymane’s Story”; Masha’s hit series “False Flag”; and Lemming Film’s six-time Dutch Academy Award winner “Sweet Dreams.”
