French media company Mediawan is expanding its foothold in Hollywood through an acquisition of Peter Chernin’s The North Road Company.
The deal, which is largely in stock and expected to close in the first half of 2026, values the “Ford v. Ferrari”and “Planet of the Apes” studio between $800 million and $1 billion. It will create one of the world’s largest independent studios at a time when the entertainment industry is undergoing significant consolidation. For Mediawan, North Road gives it a North American hub and access to veterans like Chernin.
“I’ve spent my career trying to focus on where the creative and entertainment businesses are going,” Chernin, who will serve on Mediawan’s board and as The North Road Company’s non-executive chairman, said in a statement on Friday. “In the streaming era, the platforms have all become global buyers. It’s time for a global content company with leadership in geographies all over the world to maximize the potential of this new landscape.”
But who exactly is Mediawan, and what are its Hollywood ambitions? And what does this deal signal for the broader entertainment industry? Here’s everything you need to know.
Who is Mediawan?
Created in 2015 by Pierre-Antoine Capton, Xavier Niel, and Matthieu Pigasse, Mediawan has grown over the last decade from a French independent studio into one of Europe’s leading global content groups.
The company’s portfolio spans scripted series, feature films, unscripted, documentaries and animation, with more than 400 titles produced each year. Mediawan’s notable credits include Apple’s “F1” and “Slow Horses,” Netflix’s “Adolescence” and “Call My Agent!” and Disney+’s “Miraculous.”
It is home to more than 80 production labels across 13 countries, including Plan B Entertainment (U.S./U.K.), See-Saw Films (U.K./Australia), Miraculous Corp (U.S./France), LEONINE Studios (Germany), Palomar and Our Films (Italy), Drama Republic and Misfits (U.K.), Submarine (Netherlands/U.S.), Boomerang and Good Mood (Spain), and leading French labels, including Chapter 2 and Chi-Fou-Mi.
It has also built a global distribution and rights platform through Mediawan Rights and LEONINE, with a catalogue of more than 30,000 hours of programming, and operates 27 SVOD, AVOD and FAST channels.
Why is it buying The North Road Company?
In a statement, Capton said the deal with North Road would reinforce Mediawan’s position as the “leading independent platform for premium content and as a trusted partner to streaming platforms and all content distributors worldwide.”
Mediawan’s group chief content officer Élisabeth d’Arvieu added that the deal would allow the company to accelerate co-productions, generate new synergies and create a “new bridge between the American and European industries.”
The combined entity will operate nearly 100 individual production companies representing over $2 billion in annual production volume across 15 countries, including the U.S., France, Germany, U.K., Italy, Spain, Australia, Mexico, and Turkey. It’s backed by KKR, the Qatar Investment Authority, Providence Equity Partners, The Raine Group, Bpifrance and Mediawan co-founders Xavier Niel and Matthieu Pigasse.
North Road will serve as Mediawan’s North American hub and its leadership teams, labels and creative partnerships will remain in place. The company’s shareholders, founders and management team will become significant minority Mediawan shareholders.
What are they acquiring?
Established in 2022 by Chernin, Jenno Topping and Jesse Jacobs, The North Road Company includes the scripted TV and film production studio Chernin Entertainment, the reality production company Kinetic Content and the premium documentary studio Words + Pictures.
Since its launch, the portfolio has expanded with the creation of North Road Television Studio, an independent scripted television studio, as well as the acquisitions of Jason Hehir’s Little Rooms Films, the Turkish production company Karga Seven and the Mexican production company Perro Azul.
It is also a strategic investor in Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions, Questlove and Black Thought’s Two One Five Entertainment, NBA star Chris Paul’s Ohh Dip!!! Productions, and GenAI content studio Promise, led by George Strompolos.
North Road’s credits across its various businesses include “Ford v. Ferrari,” “Hidden Figures,” “The Greatest Showman,” “Spy” “The Heat,” “The Planet of the Apes,” “Love is Blind,” “New Girl,” “Perfect Match,” “Married at First Sight,” “Chief of War,” “Truth Be Told,” “See,” “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story,””Bad Boy,” “Who Killed Sara?,” “Rise of Empires: Ottoman” and “Midnight at the Pera Palace.”
“Combining with Mediawan provides us the scale and resources to compete at the highest level globally,” The North Road Company CEO Scott Manson said. “We look forward to continuing to be a top supplier of content to our studio and streamer partners, while also leading the industry forward with new business models alongside Pierre-Antoine and our forward-thinking partners at Mediawan.”
What does the deal mean for the broader industry?
The Mediawan-North Road deal is the latest domino as the entertainment industry is undergoing significant consolidation. Netflix is poised to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming and studio assets in a massive deal valued at $83 billion.
Overseas, Banijay, which owns IP such as “Big Brother” and “Peaky Blinders,” confirmed its in preliminary discussions to merge its TV production business with RedBird IMI’s All3Media, whose credits include Peacock’s “The Traitors,” and Netflix’s “Squid Game: The Challenge.”
ITV also confirmed talks with Comcast’s Sky to sell its media and entertainment division for $2.1 billion. A potential deal would include ITV’s linear channels and its ITVX streaming platform. The Channel 3 brand also houses ITV Studios, which is famous for producing shows like “Coronation Street,” “This Morning” and “Love Island.”
“2026 in media will be defined by M&A and the realignment that follows. This deal will be one of many consolidation shifts in the development/production industry — as Mediawan’s entire makeup demonstrates,” Evan Shapiro, an independent television and film producer and former IFC and Sundance Channels president, told TheWrap. “However, what Mediawan is building is not new. This deal personifies the classic media production company roll-up of the last era. In this economy, I’m not sure that’s a good thing.”
Despite the looming threat of consolidation, Plimsoll Productions CEO Grant Mansfield, whose studio is behind projects like Netflix’s “Skyscraper Live,” Disney+’s “A Real Bugs Life,” and Apple’s “Tiny World, believes that producers shouldn’t be gloomy about the state of the market and that “we’ve got to be realistic.”
“If one is being honest, there are probably too many buyers and too many producers,” Mansfield told TheWrap’s Office With a View in September. “But to use a natural history term, it’s evolution, isn’t it? It will be survival of the fittest.”
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