International Disruptors: Superprod Co-Heads Clément Calvet & Jérémie Fajner Talk Burgeoning French Group – “We’re Several Companies But One Studio”
Welcome to Deadline’s International Disruptors, a feature where we shine a spotlight on key executives and companies outside of the U.S. shaking up the offshore marketplace. Today we’re talking to French execs Clément Calvet and Jérémie Fajner, founders of Paris-based production and distribution company Superprod Group. The group is on the rise with a recent high-profile company acquisition, an eclectic multi-format slate and embrace of cutting-edge USD pipeline technology pioneered by Pixar which is giving it the edge.
It’s hard to define Paris-based content company Superprod. Launched in 2010 with an accent on animation, the group has since branched out into live action, working on original in-house content and commissions across all formats.
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The company’s eclectic slate spans hit animated series Batwheels and Paddington and the upcoming update of iconic Dutch children’s character Miffy as well as French live action drama series Panda and feature film Mr. Blake At Your Service starring John Malkovich and Fanny Ardant.
The exterior of the group’s headquarters in the French capital’s north-eastern 11th arrondissement gives little away about the hive of activity inside. Accessed via an anonymous corner staircase off a nondescript courtyard, the hefty security doors open onto a vast airy studio with space for posts for 280 production staff, three editing rooms and one screening room.
The Paris HQ is the tip of the iceberg of a growing roster of studios and companies.
Superprod also runs a state-of-the-art studio with 280 seats in France’s animation hub of Angoulême, as well as Italian subsidiary Red Monk Studio in Milan, which is currently expanding its capacity to 150 posts.
In early April, the company also announced the acquisition of Stéphan Roelants’ Luxembourg-based sister animation companies Mésuline Productions and Studio 352, which employ around 40 local artists and technicians.
Further subsidiaries include sales company Superights and music rights management company 440Hz, which is based out of Superprod Group’s Paris HQ and has a strong focus on helping film and TV productions secure music rights.
“We’re several companies but one studio,” says Calvet.
“On any given project, artists and technicians will be working collaboratively out of Paris, Angoulême and Milan,” adds Fajner.
Outside of Europe, Superprod also owns The Co-Production Company, the New York-based financing and distribution company launched in 2021 by former VP of coproduction for DreamWorks Animation Doug Schwalbe.
“We never wanted to be a purely Franco-French company so from early on we were interested in the wider European market. Then we expanded into the U.S. where the animation market is so powerful that we need to be there,” says Calvet.
Alongside the New York team, Superprod’s presence in L.A. is assured by former Cartoon Network executive Tatiana Krokar.
“The Co-Production Company is providing EP Services to third parties but also developing original projects and supporting our growth on the U.S. market, both for our original projects and for the production services our studios provide for major clients such as Netflix and Warner Bros Animation,” explains Fajner.
Acquisitions and future growth
The recent acquisition of Luxembourg-based Mésuline Productions and Studio 352 grew out of a long-time working relationship between Calvet, Fajner and Belgian producer Roelants, who wanted to secure the future of the companies he founded in the late 1990s.
They have collaborated on a number of occasions over the years, most notably on Irish filmmaker Tomm Moore’s Oscar-nominated Song of the Sea, while the Luxembourg companies’ other credits include high-profile animated features Kensuké’s Kingdom, The Summit of the Gods and Ernest and Celestine: A Trip To Gibberita.
Calvet and Fajner express pride at the fact that Roelants has entrusted them with his beloved studio.
“We’ve known Stéphan and the talented teams at Studio 352 for many years,” says Calvet.
The addition of Mésuline Productions and Studio 352 to the Superprod group further bolsters its position as a major animation player in Europe and the execs reveal they are looking at further possible acquisitions.
“We’re considering all the opportunities that will enable us to strengthen our development, production and financing capacities, in particular in key European countries but also in France,” says Fajner. “Animation is of course at the heart of our growth plan but also fiction with recent successes of Home Sweet Rome, produced by Red Monk Studio for BBC, Rai, ARD, Family Channel, Max, as well as Panda, Superprod’s prime drama for TF1, which has just started shooting a second season.”
Technology drive
Another major development for Superprod in the last 18 months has been the launch of its own online content exchange pipeline, building on Pixar’s Universal Scene Description (USD) technology.
The original USD system was born out of an alliance between Pixar, Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, and NVIDIA and aimed at creating a standardized 3D content ecosystem so that creators do not have to jump between different types of proprietorial software.
Superprod developed its own USD pipeline in-house over the course of four years, getting backing from a private investment fund and hiring developers to undertake the task. It is one of the first companies in Europe to embrace the technology.
“It’s a new way of working, which puts creativity back in the centre. It’s quicker, more efficient and supports artists at different stages of production,” says Calvet.
At the same time as developing a system that enables staff to work individually and collaborate more effectively online, Superprod likes its employees to physically work together.
“There’s a little bit of home-working but we feel it’s important that people work together physically in the same space. Animation is a collective activity. It involves teamwork. When you’re working on very creative and complex projects, the best way to succeed to a high level, is working together,” says Calvet.
“In any case, that’s what we believe. All our studios have spaces where people can get together, sit and eat together… we believe a lot in that.”
Beginnings
Calvet and Fajner first met at animation company Alphanim in the late 1990s, where they worked for more than a decade on some 20 animated shows like XDucks, Mona le Vampire and animated movies such as Franklin.
They left Alphanim shortly after it was acquired by Gaumont (and rebaptized as Gaumont Animation) in 2008 to set up their own company in 2010.
Initially working out of their living rooms, the duo’s ambition from the outset was to produce a diverse slate across all formats but having come from the world of animation, that is where they focused their efforts first.
“The first development project we did was Lassie with TF1 and our first production was Kika & Bob,” says Calvet.
Superprod co-produced the latter animated children’s show, about the adventures of a fearless little girl and a big-hearted firefighter, with Netherlands production house Submarine (now a subsidiary of Mediawan) and Belgium’s Walking the Dog.
They made their first break into live action in 2012 with Patrick Ridremont’s feature Dead Man Talking, in which a criminal gives a moving account of his life ahead of his execution.
“The idea from the beginning was to tell stories in every format possible, not just animation. We began with animation because it was what we knew best,” says Calvet.
“We started with animated series and films and then we wanted to tell stories in different ways for TV and cinema and created a set up that allows us to make any project that fires us up. The idea is really to have a studio that is at the service of any type of project.”
Key executives working alongside the pair in this endeavor include Virginie Créance, Senior VP Animation, who oversees animation production across all the studios; Chief Creative Officer Patrick Ermosilla, who works across all the animation projects; Animation Director François Perreau, who is head of animation for all studios, Chief Technology Officer Christophe Archambault and Maité Besson, who heads up the Angoulême studio.
Commissions
Superprod initially worked on its own original projects developed in-house but has moved into commissioned work over the years.
Partners and clients have included Passion Paris (Lego Friends), Netflix (Spirit Rangers), Studiocanal (Paddington) and Warner Bros Animation (Batwheels), Nickelodeon (Anna & Friends).
Fajner reveals that Superprod won the contract to produce Batwheels via a three-part competitive tender.
“It was an international competition. We made a real effort and we won,” he says.
He emphasizes that the company does not simply execute a brief or set of instructions when it takes on a contract.
“If a company comes to us, they’re coming to a producer. We’re not going to simply execute a job, we’re there to produce a project,” he adds.
In the case of Batwheels, the show was made in its entirety by Superprod with French director Antoine Charreyron at the helm and art director Florent Auguy overseeing the visual development.
“The production is French, from the storyboards to the final image. In Los Angeles, they did the scripts, sound and post-production,” says Calvet. “It’s a nearly a French series.”
Recent live action productions include French children’s comedy Les Blagues De Toto 2 – Classe Verte, family feature Mr. Blake At Your Service and the hit show Panda for TF1, starring French singer-songwriter and actor Julien Doré as a hippy police officer pulled back into the service after trying to drop out.
Mr. Blake At Your Service, which was released in French cinemas in November 2023, is Superprod’s most high-profile live action feature to date.
“The film was an original project developed by Superprod and Bidibul Productions in Luxembourg and based on Gilles Legardinier’s best-selling novel. We then co-produced the movie, which was released in France by Universal Pictures with France TV Distribution as the sales agents. The movie sold well internationally,” explains Fajner.
Upcoming
Productions currently in the works include the second season of Panda, a new animated Asterix feature for M6 and a CGI animated series of Dutch children’s classic Miffy in partnership with Studiocanal and rightsholder Mercis, which is due to be completed in time for the 70th anniversary of the character’s creation by Dick Bruna in 1955.
“Taking care to respect the original vision of Dick Bruna, we’re making it in 3D animation and aiming it at a demographic which is slightly older than in the past, with richer stories and environments” says Calvet of the Miffy production.
Superights is co-selling the project with Studiocanal.
“The idea is to work together with the talents of our three structures to create the biggest team possible,” says Calvet of the partnership with Studiocanal and Mercis.
The company is also in advanced stages of development on adult animation The Sunrise File, billed a geopolitical thriller about a Mossad agent on the tail of former Nazi executioners.
The co-heads say that while the company tends to focus on children and family-oriented fare, they are also keen to make animation aimed at an older audience, pointing to the group’s involvement in the 2015 World War Two animated drama Cafard by Jan Bultheel, alongside Belgian companies Tondo Films and Tarantula and the Netherlands’ Topkapi Films.
Calvet says: “We want to work across the whole spectrum and be able to offer our teams the opportunity to work on different types of projects so they can renew and tell different types of stories”
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