Anna Marsh, the New Zealand-born chief of Studiocanal, hasn’t had much time to rest on her laurels since putting on an extra hat as chief content officer for Canal+ Group in March.
It’s been an action-packed year for the Paris-headquartered company which was listed at the London Stock Exchange last December and has recently completed a $2 billion takeover of South African pay TV company Multichoice, as well as the acquisition of a 34-percent stake in UGC, the Paris-headquartered film studio that operates one of France’s leading cinema chains.
With her international background, strong ties with the global film community and knowledge of the independent film world, the level-headed Marsh has become a pivotal figure within the company she first joined in 2008, and has worked closely with Canal+ Group chairman Maxime Saada on these high-stake strategic moves.
In an interview with Variety on the eve of the American Film Market, Marsh said Canal+ Group is no longer simply a production and distribution arm — it’s become a central nervous system inside one of Europe’s most global media machines. While it’s getting into the French exhibition business with UGC, Marsh revealed that the company is also exploring distribution operations in new territories besides France, the U.K., Germany/Austria, Poland, Spain and Australia/New Zealand.Canal+ — which once looked like a French premium channel — “is now in 70 countries with 40 million subscribers, so it’s a great scale,” she says.
In recent years, the company has shifted to full-scale production, financing, and multi-territory distribution, particularly in the English-language space. The group, which comprises 19 production labels, invested €3.9 billion in content in 2024 with 200 films financed and distributed each year by the group and €200 million invested annually in the production of films and TV series. “We have the financial muscles — if we believe in a movie, we get behind it,” she says. The banner is also France’s biggest financier of local movies and is partnering up with ambitious filmmakers, from Cédric Klapisch (“Colours of Tim”) to Jean-Pierre Jeunet (“Changez l’eau des fleurs”), Cédric Jimenez (“Dog 51”), Gilles Lellouche (“Beating Hearts”) and Quentin Dupieux, whose next movie “Full Phil” stars Kristen Stewart and Woody Harrelson.
Marsh points out that although some industry observers still perceive Canal+ as mainly European, it’s in fact “become a very global company” which is no longer dominantly French-speaking. That change in the company’s demographics is shaping the content strategy, notably in Africa, where Marsh says the ambition stretches beyond French-speaking markets. There, the focus , she says, is “particularly English-speaking and Portuguese-speaking Africa, in addition to the French-speaking markets where the group is already very strong.”
For Marsh, Africa is not a sales market — it’s a creative partner. “There is a huge ambition for local storytelling,” she says, “but also stories that travel, that can become global IP.”
That philosophy is already materializing with Studiocanal’s first co-production with MultiChoice’s brand M-Net. The project, which is shooting in Cape Town, underscores the banner’s ambition to build premium African franchises for a global audience.
English-language films and series represent another strong strategic axis that Marsh has been spearheading for the last five or six years. But the scale has notably accelerated, both in ambition and in slate visibility, she says, citing the Amy Winehouse movie “Back to Black,” “We Live in Time,” starring Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield, the family blockbuster “Paddington in Peru,” and Danny Boyle’s highly anticipated “Ink,” about media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s early career.
Studiocanal’s expertise and track record in theatrical distribution is another competitive advantage that most of its European counterparts don’t have. “We’re active in seven territories, which means when we do local distribution, we can push the box office further,” she says.
Besides movies, Marsh has also scaled up Studiocanal’s pipeline of English-language shows with key hires such as M-K Kennedy, who joined from Netflix in 2024, and worked on Studiocanal’s first in-house international series, “Paris Has Fallen.”“Season one sold everywhere, and it was number one on Amazon in the UK, and very strong on Hulu in the U.S,” she says of “Paris Has Fallen.” Marsh said the second installment of the anthology, “Apollo Has Fallen” – whose plot unfolds everywhere from the Libyan coast to the streets of Madrid – has wrapped filming and will air next year. “We are currently working on season three,” she said. The banner produces and distributes roughly between 15 and 20 shows per year.
Studiocanal’s strength also lies on its 9400-title library – Europe’s largest – which Marsh seeks to exploit. Among other projects, the company is developing “The Avengers,” adapted from the iconic “Chapeau Melon et Bottes de Cuir,” for an international audience, and has already enlisted a big pay-TV partner, revealed Marsh who’s attending the AFM where Studiocanal’s robust slate includes “Ink,” starring Guy Pearce and Jack O’Connell; “The Sanctuary” by Xavier Gens; “Woodwalkers 2;” “Everybody Wants to F** Me*” with LuckyChap starring Taron Egerton; and “The Midnight Library” with Blueprint Pictures.
Here’s a Q&A based on our conversation:
Your role recently evolved — what are your new responsibilities as CCO of Canal+ Group?
Since March, Maxime has given me the role of Chief Content Officer outside of sport for the Canal+ Group, which is a real honor and an opportunity as well for StudioCanal to be brought into the heart of the content strategy of the group, where more and more we’re looking to produce in-house for our in-house clients. Canal+ is present in 70 countries with roughly 40 million subscribers. As a studio, it’s an absolute joy — we’re very lucky to be in that ecosystem where our audience is extremely clear and our customers are down the hall.
How does Africa fit into your content strategy?
There are so many stories to be told in Africa, a lot of fantastic IP, some real talent. I was lucky enough to meet some of the close producers of MultiChoice when I was in Johannesburg last week, and I was really impressed with their energy, with their vision, with their agility. I think the quality of storytelling there is very strong and has real potential to grow, and I think we can learn and grow together. I really want to find strong African stories that have global resonance as well. I believe that there are already some bubbling. We’ve got one series in particular that we are going to announce soon that we’re already developing with M-Net and even shooting down in South Africa, in Cape Town, where there are a lot of really wonderful studios. We shot Glenn Powell’s movie, “Huntington” there and that was just an absolutely wonderful experience that we are planning on replicating. Also, there’s a real opportunity to lean into English-speaking and Portuguese-speaking Africa to complete our French-speaking African footprint, because there are more English-speaking subscribers now within the group than non-English. It’s important to recognize we’re a true global company.
That’s why StudioCanal has expanded in English-language production so much.
That mirrors how StudioCanal has evolved in the last 5–6 years. Whether it’s the “Back to Black,” the Amy Winehouse movie, “We Live in Time,” “Paddington in Peru” or “Ink” that we’re shooting with Danny Boyle — we’re ramping up English-language production and distributing successfully around the world. Because we have direct distribution in over seven territories, it enables us to push local box office further. For example, 50% of “Paddington in Peru”’s global box office came from StudioCanal territories. “We Live in Time” found $72 million worldwide, the lion’s share from our territories. We want to be at the forefront of creating content that will attract someone to Canal+ and push them to subscribe.
You’re also making big English-language series now. What’s next for “Paris Has Fallen”?
Season one was sold everywhere and broadcast successfully, for example on Amazon in the UK and Hulu in the US. We’ve just wrapped shoot on season two, which will broadcast next year, and we’re developing season three. We’re able to continue development independent of the channel, but it must be a healthy relationship — we never enforce anything onto our colleagues.
You have a massive library. How are you working with it to build new franchises?
We are developing “The Avengers,” an adaptation of “Chapeau Melon et Bottes de Cuir,” as a TV series with a global pay-TV partner. We’re making season one, but we definitely have ambitions to turn that into a recurring franchise. We’re developing “L’Armée des Ombres” with Ronan Bennett, set in a dystopian UK, shooting next year. We are turning “The Red Circle” into a TV series, set in Busan, Korea. And in Africa, we’re developing new stories with local partners.
Is your integrated model compatible with working with Netflix?
Yes. Netflix is definitely a really important client. We make a lot of TV with them. We’ve got 19 production companies in the Canal Plus group. Those companies, whilst Canal is a really important client, doesn’t preclude us from working with everybody. We definitely have a wide portfolio of clients, including Netflix.
Has Canal+ being publicly listed changed your content strategy?
We continue to invest as much, if not more, than we always have. We are making more and more series and movies. We’re careful with budgets. A movie like “We Live in Time” was between €10 and €15 million and made €80 million at the box office — it was exceptional. We could have made it for three times more, but we knew we didn’t need to. We approach things pragmatically and stretch budgets as far as possible. Ultimately, content remains extremely important.
How do you balance creative ambition with that budget discipline?
We fall in love with a script, then step back and apply the figures. We value movies territory by territory. We don’t pull numbers out of thin air. Sometimes it takes a long time to greenlight a film because we’re so granular in how we value it. The key to long-term survival in this business is making a movie for the right price.
Are more American producers approaching StudioCanal these days because the indie market in the U.S. is much more difficult?
Yes, definitely. More openness to co-produce and distribute than ever. With recent successes I hope they see a standard of quality, and we don’t rush things. We also have the financial muscles — if we believe in a movie, we get behind it. For instance, next year, we’ve got a really exciting movie, “Pressure,” that we did with Eric Fellner at Working Title, starring Andrew Scott, Brendan Fraser, and Kerry Condon.
That is going to be a really major event for us in 2026. We are very proud and fortunate to be partnering with Focus Features on it. And “Huntington” with our friend Glenn Powell that’s also going to be a major event. We’re locking arms with A24 who have the US and we’ve got the rest of the world.
You’ve really built a big profile as a purveyor of family entertainment with “Paddington” and other IP’s. What do you have in store?
Yes, big, strong family, local IP is an extremely important pillar. We are developing the next Asterix live-action movie in France, and in Germany, we have “Woodwalkers.” In Australia, “Kangaroo” was the biggest local movie of 2025. We’re also developing a new Paddington TV series and we are developing an animated “Paddington” movie. And we’re working on ideas for the next live movie (“Paddington 4”). We also have a new store at the Savoy Hotel in London and the musical is live in the West End. We’re also developing a “Pippi Longstocking” TV series and a live-action movie with Heyday and the Lindgren family. It’s in development and we hope to announce talent soon.
Genre is another area of interest for Studiocanal.
Yes, we launched a label called Sixth Dimension, which is run by Jed Benedict. Our first release is a small film called “Silent Night, Dead Night” which will be released around Christmas. It’s a Christmas slasher movie, which is adapted from this B-Movie back in the ’80s, but it’s very cool. We also acquired Eli Roth’s “Ice Cream Man” for our Territories. We’ve got 5-10 developments that Jed is working on some really big IP and some smaller high concept ideas with talented filmmakers. The international market really like these movies if you can make them for the right price.
Canal+ now owns 34% of UGC which is a leading cinema chain in France. what does that mean for the group and your strategy?
The deal for 34% is done. It’s a minority stake, no operational role, no leadership change — we’re passive investors. It reinforces our absolute commitment to cinema. Films must be released theatrically. Theatrical creates the event, strengthens performance later on Canal+, home entertainment and catalog value.
Is Canal+ Group considering investing in exhibition outside of France?
Never say never!
What about launching theatrical distribution in a new market?
There are expansion plans in a new territory similar to what we have in Benelux, Germany, and the UK that we’ll be able to announce soon.
What’s your biggest priority as a content leader right now?
It’s about identifying stories that can travel, accompanying talent, protecting local specificity, and balancing local and global. We have to be on our toes more than ever.
