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After helming Studiocanal and co-founding Ubisoft’s film and TV division, Didier Lupfer has joined forces with former TF1 head Édouard Boccon-Gibod and tech entrepreneur Tariq Krim to launch The Media Company, a production outfit that’s tapping into artificial intelligence.

Over at The Media Company, every film and TV project will be developed and produced using a variety of AI tools which Lupfer, Boccon-Gibod and Krim said will help creative teams develop the scripts efficiently, fast-track production thanks to previsualization and optimize budgets. Krim, who launched AI Netvibes, Jolicloud and Dissident AI), said the banner will be using a wide range of sophisticated AI softwares.

The Media Company’s first project in development is “Jules Verne contre Nemo,” a 1882-set detective thriller based on a bestseller by Céline Ghys and penned by Victoria Musiedlak and Julien Despaux (“Paris Police 1910”). The latter will also direct. The outfit is also developing a mainstream comedy,...

Galvanised in part by spectacular late-year figures for “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” box office surged this year 47.2% and 45% in France and Spain respectively in comparison to 2020, Comscore announced Thursday.

The full year 2021 figure for cinema theatre admissions in France was 96 million ticket sales, up from 65.2 million in 2020. In Spain, box office rallied to 41 million cinema tickets sold in 2021 representing €251 million ($283.63 million) in gross box office.

2021 overall box office in both France and Spain still pales, however, when compared to pre-pandemic years. France punched 213.2 million admissions in 2019 in a big year for international box office and 201.2 million in 2018.

Spain in 2021 was down 58% compared to the average for 2015-19, said David Rodriguez, Comscore general manager for Spain and Portugal.

In a complex year for cinemagoing, multiple factors appear to have shaped overall box office results: the length and scale of cinema threaten closures; the bows of true-blue Hollywood blockbusters; the strength of...

Gaumont’s international sales arm will launch four new upcoming titles at Pre-Cannes Screenings next week.

French sales, production and distribution giant Gaumont has unveiled four new projects to introduce to buyers at the Pre-Cannes Screenings.

Shooting has just begun on Ramzi Ben Sliman’s in-house production Neneh Superstar, a ballet school drama starring big-screen debutant Oumy Bruni Garrel, Maïwenn and Aïssa Maïga. Bruni Garrel, who is the daughter of Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and Louis Garrel, plays a 12-year-old girl who wins a place at the prestigious dance school of the Opéra de Paris. She outshines the other students but...

Film is a contemporary remake of 1970s French comedy The Toy by Francis Veber.

Wild Bunch International (Wbi) has boarded sales on director James Huth’s comedy The New Toy, co-starring Daniel Auteuil and Jamel Debbouze.

A remake of Francis Veber’s 1976 comedy The Toy, it revolves around a journalist who becomes the plaything of the son of his newspaper baron boss but uses the situation to open the young boy’s eyes to the fact that money can’t buy everything.

A 1982 US remake directed by Richard Donner and starring Richard Pryor as the journalist was a hit at the box office,...

Line-up features films by Arnaud Desplechin, Claire Denis, Quentin Dupieux and Julia Ducournau.

Wild Bunch International (Wbi) is launching new films by Arnaud Desplechin, Claire Denis, Quentin Dupieux and Julia Ducournau at next week’s Unifrance Rendez-vous with French Cinema.

As per company tradition, the Paris-based sales powerhouse has unveiled most of its French line-up for the coming year ahead of the annual event.

The Rendez-vous is taking place online from January 13-15 due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

Denis, Desplechin and Dupieux’s new productions were all conceived against the backdrop of the Covid-19 lockdowns and political upheavals of last year.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron outlined in a televised address on Wednesday new relief measures for the culture sector, including a temporary indemnity fund for canceled or postponed TV and film shoots during the pandemic.

Macron said the temporary indemnity fund will be launched by the National Film Board (Cnc), in collaboration with the regions and private partners, including banks, loan institutions and insurers. “Everyone will have to take their responsibilities… We won’t be able to do it on our own,” said Macron, alluding to insurers’ systemic exclusion of pandemic-related risks from their coverage.

On a case-by-case basis, the fund will aim to help French producers if they are forced to pause or reschedule filming because of the coronavirus crisis but aren’t covered by insurance. The initiative will be accessible to shoots scheduled in the months to come.

Among the 23 shoots that were stopped when France went into...

The lottery has infatuated countless people all across the world for decades now. You won’t struggle to find a person who hasn’t dreamt of striking lucky and winning a lottery jackpot. Most people have had a discussion with their friends and family members about the type of things they would do if they won the lottery, or even better gett all the EuroMillions winning numbers. So, to hear that several movies have stories based around the lottery should come as little surprise. Filmmakers regularly take inspiration from real life, and as we know, playing the lottery and dreaming about winning it is very much part of everyday life for millions of people.

Check out some cool lottery-themed European films below:

Les Tuche (aka The Tuche Family) - 2011

A classic fish out of water premise, Les Tuche explores the idea of a quirky everyday family whose lives are changed...

Pathe have Main Comp titles in Paolo Sorrentino's This Must Be the Place and Alain Cavalier's Pater on their product list, but the sale agent might find both titles a difficult sell until they are unveiled to the film critic mass. I'd bet that Phyllida Lloyd's The Iron Lady with Meryl Steep is the most desired item on their inventory list. The Iron Lady by Phyllida Lloyd - Completed This Must Be The Place by Paolo Sorrentino - Completed Monsieur Papa by Kad Merad - Completed My Worst Nightmare by Anne Fontaine - Post-Production Pater by Alain Cavalier - Completed Switch by Frederic Schoendoerffer - Completed The Tuche Family (Les Tuche) by Olivier Baroux - Completed The Well-digger's Daughter (La Fille Du Puisatier) by Daniel Auteuil - Completed Titeuf, The Film (Titeuf, Le Film) by Zep - Completed Zarafa by Jean-Christophe Lie - Post-Production Africa United by...