StudioCanal, part of the Maxime Saada-led Canal+ Group, has acquired a 51 percent stake in Italian distribution, production and sales company Lucky Red, according to sources familiar with the situation.
The Rome-based Lucky Red also has a TV production business, which has produced the likes of Belcanto for RAI and Netflix, Gigolo per Caso for Prime Video and Christian for Sky.
The company was founded in Rome in 1987 by Andrea Occhipinti (Il Divo, Everybody Knows), who will continue in his role and control the remaining 49 percent stake. Financial terms weren’t immediately clear.
StudioCanal, led by CEO Anna Marsh, and Lucky Red previously worked together on the releases of such movies as We Live in Time, starring Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield, and the Coen Brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis, starring Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, and John Goodman.
The two companies recently also teamed, together with LD Entertainment and Magnolia Mae Films, on Elsinore, a film based on the life of Ian Charleson, the Scottish star of the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire, whose final role was Hamlet in a celebrated London theater production. As exclusively revealed by THR, Andrew Scott (All of Us Strangers, Ripley, Pressure) and Olivia Colman (The Favourite, The Crown, The Lost Daughter) will star in the movie. Written and executive produced by Stephen Beresford (Pride), it will focus on how Charleson “faced incredible odds while preparing to give the performance of his life in Hamlet at the National Theatre in London.”
Lucky Red’s recent releases have included Sentimental Value, Emilia Pérez, The Boy and the Heron, and Nouvelle Vague. The company’s own productions include the likes of Robin Campillo’s Enzo, Christophe Honoré’s Marcello Mio and Netflix’s On My Skin: The Last Seven Days of Stefano Cucchi.
Together with Italy’s Indigo Film, Lucky Red also operates the sales company True Colours.
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