International TV production giant Fremantle continued its acquisition spree on Tuesday, acquiring a majority stake in Wildstar Films, the award-winning British documentary and factual specialist, supports National GeographicUS National Parks and Beautiful America and Monkey Kingdom Disney Nature.
Fremantle, which is part of media giant Bertelsmann’s RTL Group, did not disclose financial details of the deal, which will follow 11 Percentage of Bristol Wildstar.
Mark Linfield and Vanessa Berlowitz, of the groundbreaking nature series BBC Planet Earth Producer) and Frozen Planet , and long-form documentation including Chimpanzee (2020) and elephant (2012) Co-founded Wildstar for Disney, delivering premium factual content to streaming and broadcasters worldwide. They will remain in charge of the company, which is currently producing two feature films for Disneynature and several premium franchises for Disney+ and National Geographic, including Queens, Sentient Protozoa Pictures with Darren Aronofsky.
“Fremantle was a great fit – we share a similar culture and the same ambition to work with the best talent on and off screen, producing genre-defining shows; we’re also excited that their international team will help us grow Wildstar and reach even more audiences around the world,” Linfield and Berlowitz said in a statement.
The Wildstar deal is just the latest in a series of acquisitions for Fremantle as it strengthens its manufacturing operations , targeting increased its revenue from $1.9 billion last year to a 2020 target of $3 billion.
Last week, Freemantle acquired a majority stake in documentary filmmaker Movie (9/12: One Day in America) The group has been gobbling up independent companies for the past 12 ) months, including Italian production houses with scripts Lux Vide (Devils, Leonardo), Fabel of America ( Bosch), and Australian-American television group Eureka Productions (Parental directing , Looking for Magic Mike ) and so on.
Fremantle is betting that the rapid growth of global streaming platforms will drive new demands for high-quality content that streamers will not be able to meet on their own, opening up an Influential independent production companies offer opportunities.
