French studio Pathé, together with backer Merit France, the holding company of French billionaire Rodolphe Saadé, are partnering with CODA producer Vendôme Pictures to launch a new production and finance company, Emotion Pictures, that will specialize in commercial, English-language feature films.
The new studio, unveiled Tuesday, plans to develop, acquire, fully finance and produce a slate of wide-appeal English-language movies, which Pathé will release theatrically in France, Switzerland and Benelux. Emotion Pictures will have offices in Paris and Los Angeles.
The move marks a major global expansion for Philippe Rousselet’s Vendôme and Jérôme Seydoux’s Pathé, two heavyweights of the French film industry. The companies previously partnered on CODA, Sian Heder’s triple Oscar winner, which was based on the 2014 French-Belgian film La Famille Bélier from director Éric Lartigau. Vendôme and Pathé are also co-producing Morten Tyldum’s real-life drama Ibelin, starring Charlie Plummer, Stephen Graham, Toni Collette, Isabela Merced, Maisy Stella, and Bill Nighy, which begins production in Oslo this month.
In a statement, Rousselet said Emotion Pictures aimed to be the “home for filmmakers to tell original, commercial, and universally resonant stories. Films the studios used to make in the 80s and 90s, which audiences around the world are craving, and that have become far too rare today.”
Added Pathé President Ardavan Safaee: “Emotion Pictures will back original, character-driven films made for the big screen — stories that deliver ambition, craft, and emotion at a global scale. Films that make hearts beat.”
Backing for the project will come from Merit France, the family holding company of French Lebanese logistics tycoon Rodolphe Saadé. Last year Saadé took a 20 percent stake in Pathé. At the time, Pathé said the investment would be targeted at boosting production of internationally-oriented films and series, as well as the modernization of its cinema network across Europe.
Pathé, France’s biggest and oldest film studio, has also produced such English-language Oscar winners as Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, Phyllida Lloyd’s The Iron Lady, Stephen Frears’ The Queen, and Ava DuVernay’s Selma, as well as the animated claymation classic Chicken Run. The studio’s Cannes festival slate this year includes three Competition titles: Pedro Almodovar’s Bitter Christmas, Paweł Pawlikowski’s Fatherland, and Arthur Harari’s The Unknown, as well as Out of Competition titles Karma, from director Guillaume Canet, and Antonin Baudry’s De Gaulle: Titling Iron. The company is in post-production on Bunker, the new feature from The Father writer/director Florian Zeller, starring Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem.
Vendôme Pictures is currently in post-production on Andrew Niccol’s Lords of War, starring Nicolas Cage and Bill Skarsgård, the sequel to 2025’s Lord of War; and is in development on Oren Moverman’s war thriller The Man With The Miraculous Hands starring Woody Harrelson and a TV series based on Duncan Jones’ sci-fi film Source Code (2011) with Lionsgate. Earlier this year, the company optioned the film and television rights to John Valliant’s non-fiction book focusing on climate change, Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World.
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