Brad Pitt’s Plan B Sells Majority Stake to French Company Mediawan
Brad Pitt’s production company Plan B Entertainment is selling a 60 percent majority stake to the French media giant Mediawan in a deal that values the film company behind “Moonlight” and “12 Years a Slave” in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
According to multiple media reports and first reported by CNBC, a deal has already been signed and should be announced as soon as this weekend. While no terms of the deal were immediately available, Plan B is said to be worth in the hundreds of millions of dollars range but below $500 million.
A representative for Plan B and Moelis & Co., which handled the transaction, did not respond to IndieWire’s request for comment. A representative for Mediawan could not be reached.
Plan B first announced an intention to explore a sale of its assets or an investor back in October, and the sale would be the latest example in a wave of M&A activity across Hollywood over the last few years. That’s included everything from the sale of Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine to Candle Media to LeBron James selling a minority stake in his SpringHill Company, as well as other rival labels and distributors testing the waters with sales to outside investors.
Plan B is behind acclaimed films such as this year’s “She Said,” “Blonde,” and “Father of the Bride” as well as other acclaimed titles like “Minari,” “Ad Astra,” “If Beale Street Could Talk,” and more. Coming up, Plan B has Sarah Polley’s “Women Talking,” Bong Joon-Ho’s “Mickey 17,” and MGM’s “Landscape With Invisible Hand,” which was just announced for a premiere at Sundance. They also worked on Barry Jenkins’ Amazon series “The Underground Railroad” and have a film deal with MGM and a TV deal with Amazon Studios.
Pitt founded Plan B in 2001 alongside his manager Brad Grey, who passed away in 2015, and his ex-wife Jennifer Aniston. President Dede Gardner and co-president Jeremy Kleiner lead the company.
Mediawan is a French conglomerate that owns over 60 production labels, primarily across Europe, including banners such as Lagardère Studios and the French TV division of EuropaCorp. The company was founded in 2015 by Pierre-Antoine Capton, Xavier Niel, and Matthieu Pigasse.