StudioCanal Partners With ‘Mayhem!,’ ‘Perpetrator’ Producer WTFilms on Genre Slate

StudioCanal is teaming up with French production outfit WTFilms on a slate of European genre films.

The agreement will see StudioCanal and WTFilms collaborate in the development, production and distribution of action, thriller, science fiction and horror movie over a period of at least two years.

StudioCanal will act as a co-producer and distributor for WTFilms projects selected during that time.

The new collobration sprang from StudioCanal’s successful partnership with WTFilms on Xavier Gens’ action thriller Mayhem!, which was a fantasy festivals hit last year and was picked up by IFC Films for the U.S.

“The success of Mayhem! reinforced our choice to focus our production projects on genre, ranging from action to thriller and horror,” said WTFilms co-founders Dimitri Stephanides and Gregory Chambet. “Since its beginning, the DNA of WTFilms has been closely linked to our personal taste for this cinema. Today, we are very enthusiastic about the idea of plowing this furrow with StudioCanal, whose ambitions in this area align with ours and those of many talented directors, to produce films with strong commercial potential both in France and abroad.”

The WTFilms deals follows StudioCanal’s launch of its own, still-unnamed genre label, which Paddington producer Jed Benedict is heading up. Benedict and StudioCanal’s French production team will work with WTFilms under the scope of the new partnership.

Stephanides and Chambet launched WTFilms (What the Films) in 2012, initially as a sales company with a focus on international genre movies, handling world sales for such features as Carles Torrens’ horror film Pet (2016) starring Dominic Monaghan, the Bill Pullman western The Ballad of Lefty Brown (2017), and Dominique Rocher’s Parisian-set art house zombie movie The Night Eats the World.

More recently, WTFilms has moved into production, backing Gens’ Mayhem! and Jennifer Reeder’s feminist horror film Perpetrator starring Alicia Silverstone.

“The WTFilms teams are experts in their field and enthusiasts of genre films, who will bring a lot to StudiocCanal,” said WTFilms’ François Mergier, director of French production, and Assia Barge, head of French production, who negotiated the agreement. “This partnership is so promising, and we hope to bring incredible genre projects to audiences worldwide in years to come!”