Nine production companies behind films such as “The Class” and “Toni Erdmann” are turning their five-year partnership into a holding company that they own together. Their CEO says Anton's investment brings the extra money needed to offer streamers a single point of access to talent from across Europe.
Anton Studios, a European studio, is taking a minority stake in The Creatives as a partner and investor. The Creatives is a group of independent film and television producers. Under the deal, the group is changing from a loose partnership into a company with a jointly owned holding structure, meaning a parent company owned by the producers together. Romain Bessi remains its CEO. Variety reported the deal as an exclusive on 30 September 2026.
The group has nine member companies: Haut et Court and Unité in France, Komplizen and Razor Film in Germany, Good Chaos in the UK, Lemming Film in the Netherlands and Belgium, Maipo Film in Norway, Spiro in Israel and Masha in the US. Variety says the new structure will make The Creatives the first European-rooted, producer-owned group of its scale in film and television.
According to Variety, Anton's investment strengthens the group's finances and gives it more access to equity financing, which is money raised by selling part-ownership rather than by borrowing. The report does not give the size of the stake or the amount invested. Anton is led by Sébastien Raybaud. Its projects include “In Love,” starring George Clooney and Annette Bening, and “Pumping Black,” starring Jonathan Bailey and Natalie Portman.
The Creatives began in 2021 as a long-term strategic partnership. Bessi told Variety that the producers set it up because they did not want to be bought out and wanted to share expertise and contacts. They formed “a form of club,” met informally every month and co-produced films together. Because this worked well, he said, they decided to become a formal group. They then asked him for help. He spent the past year and a half structuring the group and looking for an investor.
The members' films have won more than 140 awards at major festivals and ceremonies. Examples include Haut et Court's Palme d'Or winner “The Class,” Komplizen's Oscar-nominated “Toni Erdmann,” Razor Film's Oscar-nominated “Waltz With Bashir,” and Spiro's “Foxtrot,” which won the Venice Grand Jury Prize. Good Chaos's two “Sisu” films both topped global streaming charts, Variety reported.
Bessi has worked in production, distribution and broadcasting for three decades. He was chairman and CEO of Newen Studios/Studio TF1 within the TF1 Group until 2024. He also served as group COO of Studiocanal, CFO of the Canal+ channels in France and CEO of Canal+ in the Nordics.
Analysis
The group's ownership model was the main difficulty, according to Bessi. All 17 producers in the group are shareholders and together control it. “Usually, you have one person or company who gets the shares and the control,” he said. Because of that, he added, some investors were concerned about how the group would be run.
Bessi said The Creatives received several offers but set strict conditions. The investor had to be European, both for how the deal would look and because of regulation. It had to understand that the film business has good and bad years and requires risk. It also had to accept a minority stake, not ask for distribution or sales rights, and respect the producers' valuation of the group. Bessi also wanted a partner he knew. He said Anton was created 15 years ago to carry out a state financing deal for Studiocanal, at a time when he was CEO there.
Analysis
Bessi says the goal is to make The Creatives the leading “one-stop-shop” production company in Europe for major distributors and streamers. Such companies, he said, would get access to “many talents, many projects out of many European countries” in one place, rather than “going country by country” to work with each producer. He argued that the group is now large and financially reliable enough to play that role.
He also said the new money should let the producers take more risks, develop the projects they choose and use each other's connections. “We want these people to do what they do best: to produce and attract talent,” he said. These are Bessi's aims. Variety's report gives no response from streamers or distributors.
Bessi said all agreements are signed and the group is “ready to go.” However, The Creatives will be formally created only at closing, the point when the deal is completed. According to the 30 September 2026 report, that will follow technical steps expected to take a few months.
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