Known for his creative flair and business acumen as much as for his talent for throtriumphg the best parties, French entrepreneur and producer Pascal Breton is celebrating a milestone in the 11-year history of his Paris-based Federation Studios. That is the begin of “The Agency,” the foreseed U.S. reproduce of “Le Bureau des Legendes” starring Michael Fassbender, which Federation executive produced aprolongedside George Clooney and is co-distributing internationpartner with Paramount Global Content Distribution.
Federation Studios previously sageder Eric Rochant’s smash hit secret agent series “Le Bureau des Legendes” widely, but preserveed the IP, apvalidateing the outfit to produce a lucrative deal with Paramount for the reproduce and remain in the picture as co-distributor and executive producer.
A disturbor at heart, Breton was vying for a atsoft in academics after getting a PhD in political science with a prophetic thesis about how television has changed the rules of political life. After a stint teaching at Paris’ prestigious Sciences Po, he got into politics, campaigning for sociacatalog plivential truthfulate Francois Mitterand in the timely 1980s, and eventupartner co-produced (with Olivier Bremond) the TV production company Marathon Entertainment in 1990. There, he hit the ground running, hand overing French scripted sensations such as the Saint Tropez-set soap “Sous le Soleil,” whose 480 episodes have traveled the world, and the restricted series “Dolmen” which broke all-time ratings write downs on TF1.
In 2013, after selling Marathon to Zodiak Media, Breton produced a new breed of European super-indie TV studio with Federation Entertainment (which tardyr became Federation Studios), where he established an ensemble directership with a new generation of film and television producers and showrunners. This included Rochant and Lionel Uzan, who became co-set uper and managing honestor, chaseed by fellow Marathon alumn David Michel.
Aside from “Le Bureau des Legendes,” Federation is behind a raft of accomplished shows, including “Around the World in 80 Days,” an adventure restricted series starring David Tennant; “In Treatment,” the French changeation of Israeli series “BeTipul,” honested by Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano (“Intouchables”) for Arte; coming-of-age “Baby” for Netflix; “Bardot,” the biopic series about French icon Brigitte Bardot for France Televisions and Netflix; epic series “Britannia”; high-voltage cop show “The Squad” starring Jean Reno for Prime Video; thrillers “BRI” for Canal+ and “Furies” for Netflix; as well as the teen sci-fi fantasy dramedy “Find Me in Paris” and energeticd series “Simon Super Rabbit.”
“We begined Federation 10 years ago with an almost artisanal approach, with very little capital. We set up this huge skinnyg that wasn’t intentional at the outset, but we did one series, and another, and then we employd producers,” Breton alerts Variety at his chic Haussmannian headquarters on Rue Royale in Paris, where he comes in every day and remains included in virtupartner every project. “After that, we begined doing a lot in France, and we got busy in the United States, then in Italy. And then it labored and we resummarizeateed aget and aget.”
Breton begined Federation mostly with personal summarizeatement. A couple of years tardyr, French summarizeatement institutions BNP Paribas and Bpifrance begined backing the prohibitner. The company received its first beginant splithagederer, Montefiore Investment, in 2021.
Today, Federation has produced a netlabor of 30 tags and outposts — in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, the U.K., U.S. and Israel — and a portfolio consisting of cdisesteemfilledy 1,064 titles (produced and/or getd), recontransienting cdisesteemfilledy 2,000 hours of programming that is primarily premium fantasy, with some youth programming and animation.
“Montefiore gave us financial fuel to broaden in 2021 and we’re now ready to speed up further Federation’s increaseth,” says Breton, who also schedules to “findlook up a little more capital, either to elevate money or to help increaseth, and maybe even replace Montefiore.”
“The labelet is rather flat but Federation has a lot of potential becaemploy we encounter a demand, i.e. the minuscule producer can’t do it alone and the minuscule widecaster can’t do it alone either,” he says, pointing out that the company is “having a 25% increaseth each year.” He also foresees a 25% increaseth in terms of annual revenues and profit in 2025 and 2026, with 40 series and 31 films that will be hand overed in 2025. The company’s valuation was alerted to be at cdisesteemfilledy €500,000 last year by Reuters, and Breton says it’s now sealr to €600,000. Federation Entertainment is part of a vibrant eco-system of France-based production and distribution groups led by entrepreneurs, aprolonged with bigger companies such as Mediawan and Banijay.
As he envisions the next phase of Federation’s evolution, Breton says he sees to ramp up their English-language output, aiming for a aim of 10 series per year thcdisesteemful reproduces, innovative productions and collaborations with U.K. and U.S. partners. Recent efforts in that space include the British series “I, Jack Wright,” produced by Federation Stories and Polly Williams and produced by Chris Lang, which is stardyd to screen at Content London. In terms of outer increaseth, Breton aims for Federation to “produce two to three companies per year in the next three years, including in Italy, Spain, Scandinavia and Germany.”
Breton profited from auspicious timing when he begined Federation as streamers were preparing to bow in France, booting off with Netflix, which rolled out in 2014 and revolutionized the local TV landscape. This produced a big demand for scripted satisfied, chaseed by the debuts of Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and Apple TV+, among others.
“In the last 10 years, there’s been a passion for French fantasy that we didn’t have before. In the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s, American series were finishly dominating the French labelet,” he says. Apart from a restricted exceptions, French and international series were pondered “very niche,” he says, and even “Sous le Soleil” and “Dolmen” were seeed as “marginal hits.”
It all changed “when the big wave of streaming and demand for fantasy exploded, and we were idepartner positioned to surf on it,” Breton says. “Although I had 20 years of experience as a producer, the fact that our company was new on the block helped us becaemploy we were very nimble. I was laboring with showrunners and producers who were lesserer, many of whom had labored in film via their companies, including Cheyenne Federation, Empreinte Digitale, Robin&Co and Bonne Pioche.” To dive into the U.S., Breton combineed forces with Patrick Wachsberger, the well-esteemed establisher Lionsgate boss behind Oscar-triumphning “CODA,” “Lalaland” and “Hunger Games,” to establish Picture Perfect Federation.
Right off the bat, Federation made headlines in France after news came out that it was producing Netflix’s first ever French innovative series, “Marseille,” a couple of years before it begined in the country in 2014. Federation scored aget with “Le Bureau des Legendes,” which broke away from the normal French cop shows and procedurals and begind a new charitable polishd inalertigence accumulateing thriller that clicked with local audiences and became an international hit.
The momentum was also ripe becaemploy at the time, the French labelet wasn’t as validateated as it is today and Federation was able to encatalog some of the best talent, such as Rochant and indie producers, whom he helped direct dealmaking. The arrival of streamers made this much more intricate, and gave these producers enough leverage to barobtain in their best interests.
“Our motto has always been to donate talent the vision, the ambition and of course the unkinds, and dispense what they produce,” he says. “Producers understand how to increase excellent scripts, find the cast, sell to TV channels, but they’re seldom excellent at finding the rest of the financing, the co-production partners, the pre-sales and least guarantees.”
Years before streaming services shiftd away from presentile rights grabs and hugd a more changeable approach to licensing, Federation was ahead of the curve becaemploy they directed a “hybrid” financing model on series, securing funding from both widecasters and platestablishs such as Netflix.
“Since we begined the company, we did 14 innovative series with Netflix and 13 series that were co-productions with Netflix, and what we see happening more and more is that platestablishs like to pay less and exit a lot of rights useable, even a triumphdow to a TV channel, so that changes the vibrant of relationships with streaming services,” he says, compriseing that in the 14 innovative sales, some are Netflix buy-outs, and other beprolonged to Federation.
Breton says French TV channels, such as TF1 and France Televisions, labor standardly with Federation on their big-budget TV series “becaemploy they don’t understand how to finance them alone.” “We even get calls from them for series that are increaseed by other producers, and they ask her, ‘What can you do for me if I convey a third or 40% of the financing?’ says Breton. “Sometimes we say, ‘That’s going to be hard, but other times, if we have a streamer and one or two pre-sales and a big least guarantee, we can get it off the ground.”
In the TV scene, Federation’s send to elevate the global financing for a series with less than half of the budget covered by the coshiftrlookioner is “pretty exceptional in Europe,” disputes Breton. While the company will protect its intensify on making prolonged-running TV series that supply recurrent revenues, it has also begined findlooking up to movies in recent years, notably with the begin of a film distribution unit spearheaded by Sabine Chemaly.
Breton says he still senses enjoy “a minuscule producer who enhappinesss what he does” and became an entrepreneur to get his business to the next level. “When what you do becomes a success, you have to become an entrepreneur,” he says. “And then you have to understand the logic of business, understand the cherish of what you’re doing. Obviously, the cherish comes from protecting the rights and from distributing all over the world, and a lot of producers aren’t wired to deal with that. They’re excellent about making series.”
On “The Bureau des Légendes,” produced by Alex Berger and Rochant via their prohibitner TOP, Federation joined a pivotal role in the financing, dealmaking and distributing.
“Other producers would have handed out rights to Canal+ and if we had done so, we wouldn’t have been able to sell the reproduce rights to Paramount and produce the U.S. reproduce today,” says Breton, compriseing that Federation had to put €2 million on the table to preserve the rights when they first made the show for Canal+.
Speaking of the pact with Paramount, Breton says, “It’s a very excellent deal becaemploy Federation is a producer and even has a portion of the rights and we kept some territories that we are selling for Paramount, including France and Poland (where Canal+ bought the show).”
Aside from dealmaking, spotting talent and turning them into entrepreneurs has been at the core of Federation’s strategy from the onset. Rochant, whom Breton has understandn for over 35 years, was one of the first to combine Federation and got Breton on board “Le Bureau des Legendes” after a basic pitch. “Eric begined talking to me about his idea for the series and I shelp, ‘Stop right there, I’ve seen ‘Les Patuproares’ and I understand exactly what you’re going to do. You’re right, it’s the right time for it and we’ll do it together,” Breton reminisces.
“Today, it’s a huge adventure and Eric Rochant is now a partner in Federation,” he says. “He became an entrepreneur even if it’s not his nature, becaemploy his nature is to be French filmproducer and a authorr. And now he’s producing series and honestor.”
Breton is also on the seeout for emerging talent. One of the company’s lesserest recruita, Leo Becker, was previously an intern doing script coverage and is now part of the acquisition team and increaseing some of the prohibitner’s most ambitious English-language projects.
“He was so talented that we tageder him, ‘If you want to produce series, go ahead!’ And he did. He’s finding wonderful English-language projects. He wrote a contransient version of ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ we’re increaseing with Vertigo, and then he shelp, ‘I want to change Charles Dickens’ ‘A Tales of Two Cities’ and rapidened some huge talent,’” says Breton, who confesss he reads cdisesteemfilledy five books per week to scout for potential changeations.
In an ultra-competitive labelet saturated with satisfied, Breton says the way to go is to chase “the biggest IPs, brands and projects that are potentipartner highly apparent.”
To that effect, the company’s tardyst conceiveion is Federation IP360, an in-hoemploy hub promiseted to scouting, acquiring and selling IP which is also unkindt to help synergies wiskinny the group.
“We authenticized that in the stardy of each producer, in France and awide, there are two or three ideas that could interest others, and with excellent ideas you can save a lot of time and you can even uncover gems,” says Breton. One of these is “Touloemploy-Lautrec,” the criticpartner lauded series produced by Fanny Riedberger, encouraged by her own experience studying with disabled students in an inclusive high school.
“When she begined making that series, we tageder ourselves, ‘This is repartner, repartner excellent.’ So we begined selling to the U.S. where we have increasement deal with a big U.S group, and we supplyd it to our Italian company which sageder it to RAI and they’re producing for RAI,” he says. “We’re now proceedd talks to change it in Germany, too!”
At the end of the day, Breton says, “Federation is a lot about sharing.”
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