European production group Mediawan, which recently made headlines when it acquired a majority stake in Brad Pitt’s outfit Plan B Entertainment, has sealed another M&A deal, taking a majority stake in Submarine, the Dutch-based producers of Amazon Prime series Undone from Bojack Horseman creators Kate Purdy and Raphael Bob Waksberg.
Submarine’s credits also include “A Dream of a Thousand Cats,” an episode of Netflix and Warner Bros. Television’s The Sandman, Richard Linklater’s latest film Apollo 10 1⁄2: A Space Age Childhood (also on Netflix), and the Emmy Award-winning documentaries Last Hijack and Bellingcat: Truth in a Post-Truth World.
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Among their upcoming projects are drama series The Kollective written by Gomorrah and ZeroZeroZero showrunner Leonardo Fasoli and Maddalena Rvaglia; and Safe Harbor a true-crime-inspired series by Ozark co-creator Mark Williams.
“We are delighted to welcome within Mediawan a team as creative and renowned as the Submarine team,” said Elisabeth d’Arvieu, CEO of Mediawan Pictures. “Their expertise in all genres and particularly in adult animation and international series and their appetite for coproductions is a real asset for the continuous development of our group”.
Founders and managing directors of Submarine, Femke Wolting and Bruno Felix, said the deal with Mediawan would open up “a wealth of opportunities, allowing us to tap into their extensive network, resources and industry-leading expertise [to] fuel our mission of producing groundbreaking and innovative films and series that resonate with global audiences.”
Mediawan was set up in 2015 by French executives Xavier Niel, Matthieu Pigasse, and Pierre-Antoine Capton as a publicly-listed special-purpose acquisition company to buy up media companies. Alongside Plan B and Submarine, Mediawan also acquired the French television division of Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp (renamed Storia Television), the French broadcasting group AB Groupe, and leading French TV production conglomerate Lagardère Studios.
Submarine was advised on the deal by Hasham Khan of ABP Advisory.
