The company’s French release slate for 2026 includes Fred Cavayé’s ambitious, big-budget adaptation of Les Misérables
2025 was a rough year at the French box office, with a total of 156.8 million (m) admissions, down 13.6% from 2024, amounting to gross ticket sales of approximately €1.16bn ($1.36bn).
Within the difficult context, Studiocanal emerged as the top French distributor of the year with 8.6m admissions (€63.6m) and the fourth best in the country, trailing US studios Disney (31.1m admissions), Warner Bros (16.5m) and Universal (12.5m) and ahead of Paramount (7.3m), SND (7.2m), Pathé (6.3m), Sony (5.5m), Gaumont (4.9m) and Diaphana (3.9m).
This year, the company is poised to unleash a bevy of would-be local blockbusters as it seeks to bolster its production slate with bigger-budget event films – part of a wider move by parent company Canal+ to expand its overseas footprint, a strategy that saw it list on the London Stock Exchange in late 2024 and fully acquire African video entertainment company MultiChoice Group in 2025. On home ground, meanwhile, it is moving full steam ahead with plans to acquire French cinema and production group UGC by 2028.
On the production front, Studiocanal has been funding some of the biggest-budget films ever made in France, including Gilles Lellouche’s $38m (€32m) romantic epic Beating Hearts, which premiered at Cannes in 2024 and sold 5 million tickets at the French box office, followed by the studio’s most expensive film to date – Cédric Jimenez’s $50m (€42m) thriller Dog 51 – which was released locally in October 2025.
The balance between risk and reward, however, has been a challenge. Dog 51 was the fourth best performing French film of last year, with 1.4 million admissions, but it underwhelmed compared to Jimenez’s The Stronghold (2.2 million in 2020) and November (2.4 million in 2022) and Studiocanal certainly wanted more.
Francois Mergier, the company’s EVP of French productions, maintains Dog 51 still “has a long life ahead” following a glitzy Venice premiere and run on the global festival circuit including Toronto. “It isn’t over,” he says, noting that in addition to SVoD, VoD and TV rights in France, the film has sold thus far to a further 50 territories.
And he insists these hefty price tags are not just smoke and mirrors. “When we make expensive films, there is a strategy behind the budget,” he says. “We always try to balance a film’s value between France and its international potential.”
Lellouche’s Beating Hearts sold to more than 70 international territories, although it has yet to secure a North America distribution deal – a market that has become tougher to crack for French films. Realising the international potential of its French-produced projects, especially those of a bigger budget, is a key imperative.
“We think international from the get-go. We also look for films that have a potential for longevity,” says Mergier, citing the group’s vast catalogue of 9,000-plus features.
It helps that Studiocanal directly distributes films in nearly a dozen international markets including France, the UK and Ireland, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Poland, Australia and New Zealand. In addition to French-language titles, it also produces English-language films out of the US, UK and Australia, and local-language films in Spain, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands, in addition to recently co-producing out of Sweden, Italy and Denmark.
It is not just about tentpoles – Studiocanal is increasingly present at A-list festivals. Last year, it premiered auteur-driven films including Vincent Maël Cardona’s No One Will Know, Alex Lutz’s Connemara, and Romane Gueret and Lise Akoka’s Summer Beats at Cannes. It is also taking a more proactive approach when boarding projects.
“We are coming in earlier, and not waiting for projects to come to us,” says Mergier. “[Local producers] are happy to work with us throughout the development process to help better position the film for long-term success in France and internationally. Producers like to be reassured about the direction the film is headed.”
Femmes forward
In a quieter move, Studiocanal launched a $1.2m (€1m) internal development fund in 2023 to back more films from women screenwriters and directors, intended to support between eight and 10 projects.
The first of those projects, a biopic of entertainer Josephine Baker by Cuties director Maïmouna Doucouré, is due to go into production this year, while a second, about film pioneer Alice Guy, will be the directorial debut of Ana Girardot. The latter is developed with producers Julie Billy and Naomi Denamur of June Films, whose The Little Sister by Hafsia Herzi premiered in Cannes last May.
“We receive around 500 projects per year and only 20% are from women filmmakers,” says Mergier. “That’s not enough so we are trying to change that, even if it won’t happen overnight.”
Six more unannounced projects are in development, spanning animation, comedy, action and literary adaptations. “We want to make blockbusters directed by women in France, like Barbie,” adds Mergier.
The company hopes to build on the success of recent female-directed features such as Jeanne Herry’s All Your Faces, which sold 1.2 million tickets in 2023 and earned one win from eight César nominations, and upcoming high-profile productions including Nicole Garcia’s Milo, which stars Marion Cotillard and Théodore Pellerin and is produced by Alain Attal’s Trésor Films.
It is also spearheading Agnes Jaoui’s Crescendo (L’Objet Du Delit), produced by Les Films du Kiosque. Jaoui co-stars with Daniel Auteuil in a #MeToo-era story, set behind the scenes of an opera rattled by an accusation of sexual assault.
Other high-profile productions include Quentin Dupieux’s English-language genre mash-up Full Phil, starring Kristen Stewart, Woody Harrelson and Emma Mackey, with the group’s longtime production partner, Mediawan-owned Chi-Fou-Mi; and Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s adaptation of Valérie Perrin’s bestseller Fresh Water For Flowers, starring Leïla Bekhti, Matthias Schoenaerts and Melvil Poupaud and produced by another pair of Mediawan-owned banners, Palomar and 24 25 Films.
Studiocanal is pinning its biggest ambitions for 2026, however, on Fred Cavayé’s Les Misérables. The film’s starry French cast is led by Vincent Lindon and Tahar Rahim, and it is pencilled for an October release. Cavayé has said his adaptation of Victor Hugo’s classic novel will have a modern, thriller-like style and give more prominence to female characters.
“It will be a major event not just for us, but for French cinema,” adds Studiocanal head of distribution Thierry Lacaze. “It is a part of French heritage that has been modernised. The cast isn’t just a list of well-known names for marketing purposes – it includes a young generation of up-and-coming talent who bring the story to life. The market needs event films like this.”
These titles will join a busy 2026 French release slate that includes Christophe Barratier’s Second World War drama Children Of The Resistance, Gilles de Maistre’s The Desert Child, and local comedies Les K d’Or and Bagarre.
It has already started the year strongly with Yann Gozlan’s Guru, a psychological thriller about a manipulative self-help guru starring Pierre Niney, which has garnered 700,000 admissions since its January 28 release and ranks as one of the 10 best debuts for a French film since 2021.
While acquisitions do not occupy a significant role at Studiocanal (“Our strategy isn’t to go to markets and acquire films,” says Lacaze) and it prefers to remain a one-stop-shop for finance, production, distribution and international sales, exceptions will be made. Pick-ups for France include Walter Salles’ Oscar winner I’m Still Here, which was released in January 2025, and Lynne Ramsay’s undated Die My Love.
Studiocanal’s upcoming international productions to distribute in France include Cold Storage, How To Make A Killing, Pressure and Shaun The Sheep: The Beast Of Mossy Bottom.
In 2027 the company will send more ambitious projects to cinemas, including Laurent Zeitoun’s animation Wings Of Freedom; the next live-action Asterix movie; and Tarek Boudali’s action comedy Somnambule from the team behind Studiocanal hits Alibi.com and its 2023 sequel.
“Commercial comedies will always work better in France, of course,” says Lacaze. “But when we are making films to appeal to local audiences, we still always think about their wider reach.”
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