Anna Marsh is one of the most powerful women in European entertainment. The CEO of StudioCanal and chief content officer and deputy CEO of its corporate parent Canal+ Group was one of the key speakers during a Tuesday evening event in Paris, shining a spotlight on the Canal+ 2026 content lineup under the title “The Original +.”
The event, hosted by Thomas N’Gijol, took place a year after the French media and telecom conglomerate Vivendi split into four companies, making Canal+ a separate company, whose stock is listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Marsh joined StudioCanal in 2008, where she held the positions of head of international sales and managing director of StudioCanal U.K. before rising to the CEO post in 2019. She added the title of deputy CEO of Canal+ Group in 2022, was later appointed a member of the Canal+ management board, and earlier this year was promoted to the additional role of chief content officer of Canal+.
Under Marsh, the European studio has redoubled its focus on theatrical films, with its worldwide box office tripling since 2022 thanks to the likes of Paddington in Peru, Back to Black, Wicked Little Letters, and French hit Beating Hearts. Beyond the Paddington franchise, StudioCanal is also the home of the likes of Bridget Jones and Shaun the Sheep.
Among the news unveiled on Tuesday is Elsinore, a film about Scottish actor Ian Charleson of Chariots of Fire fame, starring Andrew Scott and Olivia Colman.
Earlier this year, StudioCanal launched European genre label Sixth Dimension, focused on high-concept horror, thriller and sci-fi movies. On the corporate side, Canal+ has increased its stake in Nordic streamer Viaplay and acquired a 34 percent stake in French theatrical exhibitor UGC.
THR talked to Marsh about her content strategy and how it fits into the broader company’s priorities, StudioCanal’s push into TV series, why it’s smart to be a Swiss army knife, and why the company believes in cinemas.
How would you describe the big-picture vision of your content strategy and how does it fit into the broader Canal+ Group?
First of all, it is an absolute privilege to be part of this amazing, dynamic group led by [Canal+ chairman and CEO] Maxime Saada, which has a very positive vibe of growth and global expansion. So, that helps to get us excited about working in the really effervescent content business. We’re always pushing the boundaries, we are always aiming to redefine and create stories that will surprise an audience, that may shock an audience, that may provoke a thought amongst an audience, whether it’s in front of the small or the big screen. That pushes us to really work with the most creative minds and talents in the business.
One thing that’s really important for me is to think about making sure we’re connecting strongly locally and resonating globally. We’re always working on this local and global stage where the two work in lockstep.
How key are recognizable and beloved brands, or intellectual property (IP), such as Paddington, for your slate, and how do you think about featuring popular characters across platforms?
We’re lucky and privileged to be looking after such a beautiful and deeply rooted heritage brand as Paddington. Our responsibility to look after it is really what guides us. Paddington stands for and is rooted in values of kindness and of respect, touching, humane values that I think bring people together – whether in cinemas or for the West End musical. And Paddington, with what he stands for, brings together people of all ages, from seven to 77, and beyond, and not only in Britain. We have really managed to connect locally in Britain and resonate globally, manifested by the wonderful box office results for Paddington in Peru, with $211 million worldwide.
We’re super-proud of that, particularly at a moment where cinema-going is, in 2025, not necessarily been the best year in terms of figures, but Paddington is right up there and remains the leading independent film [with a total haul of $700 million for the three films together, making it the biggest independent family film franchise of all time].
But Paddington is not just about the movies. It’s also about the TV series, which has won multiple Emmy Awards. It’s the musical, the merchandise, and at Paddington station, we revamped the store this year and really made it a destination. And now, there is also the immersive experience.
So, absolutely, when we think of franchises, we’re thinking of IP, and we’re thinking about how we can approach it from a 360-degree perspective, literally being across the whole value chain.
What are some of the other IPs that you would highlight?
We’re very excited to have come on board of Pippi Longstocking, with whom we’re very grateful to have been entrusted by the wonderful Astrid Lindgren family in Sweden. Pippi stands for other values that mean a lot to us at StudioCanal and can really be a vehicle for modern storytelling. Pippi is this young, really strong, nine-year-old kick-ass gal, redefining the roles in a strict little town where people don’t expect a young lass to be living on her own. So we’re having a lot of fun with that. David Heyman and his Heyday Films, who are behind Paddington, are also working with us on the Pippi Longstocking film and TV series.
We also just announced Mr. Men and Little Miss, with the same partners, which is another huge brand, having sold 300 million books worldwide.
So in the family franchise space, we’re having a lot of fun, but we also have franchises in the genre and horror space.
Your team has been pushing into the series space. Can you discuss that strategy a little bit?
Being part of the Canal+ Group is a real opportunity here, because we have 40 million subscribers sort of at our fingertips. TV series are a really important part of our strategy and our growth. We still have a lot to develop and a lot to prove in this domain, so it’s really just the beginning. We’re just starting out with TV series.
We made a series in the “has fallen” [franchise], Paris Has Fallen, which was a great success, not only for the Canal+ Group, but also worldwide, in the U.K. and the U.S., in particular, on Hulu and Amazon. We’re just wrapping our second season of Has Fallen, which has been widely picked up by all the same partners.
Off the back of that, we’re very excited to be developing an adaptation of a movie from our catalog called Army of Shadows, which was a 1969 Jean-Pierre Melville movie. The series is written by Ronan Bennett (The Day of the Jackal, MobLand). We also have The Avengers in development. We’re really going to accelerate the reboot, the reimagining of these series for today’s world.
You touched on the opportunity for horror content. Tell me a little bit about what StudioCanal has cooking there.
What I love about horror, and why we’ve just launched in the past year a specific label dedicated to horror movies called Sixth Dimension, is that it’s a really immersive experience. It really brings, especially a lot of young people, into the movie theater. And horror gives you the jump scares, or even some of the comedy, with really clever storytellers giving you that feeling of getting under your skin. It’s a visceral experience, and human beings love to share that collectively.
We’ve got ideas for series with that massive IP we have, such as a really cool werewolf horror movie called The Howling, which is a very edgy, cool movie that has a lot of franchise potential, similarly to what we’ve seen with Evil Dead. We just wrapped Evil Dead Burn in New Zealand, where the great French director Sébastien Vaniček shot.
Sixth Dimension is also there to identify young talents, because you can make great horror movies for a very affordable price. And when you don’t have a lot of money, it pushes creativity. It forces you to be creative. And that’s what we love in this genre.
Maxime Saada has mentioned that Canal+ is happy to be a “super-aggregator,” offering audiences not only its own originals but also other great content, plus licensing your originals to other companies…
That’s a real opportunity to be able to truly work with everybody. Everybody is a partner. We are working with all the global streamers, the studios, local producers, local TV channels, all through our geographical footprints and beyond. At StudioCanal, this definitely opens doors. It’s absolutely essential to our strategy that we continue to develop our in-house content strategy, and then on the other side, we have projects in development in film and television that require partnerships to support bigger budgets that may not be perfectly suited for Canal+, but can find an audience through different platforms. So to have that versatility, to be a Swiss army knife, is an absolute treat.
You also distribute content across windows. Netflix’s deal for Warner Bros. was met with concern about the potential death of traditional cinemagoing. In contrast, your company struck a deal for a 34 percent stake in big French exhibitor UGC and expressed a commitment to the theatrical window. Why is that important for you and the company?
At the Canal+ Group, we are absolute believers in cinemas. We believe in the cinema-going experience, and, obviously, the acquisition of the 34 percent stake in UGC is a real demonstration of that commitment to cinema-going in one of Europe’s largest and most important territories for us. It also allows us to be present throughout the whole value chain when we release a film theatrically. It goes without saying that the lifecycle value of the movie is truly enhanced through a theatrical window. There’s publicity, there’s marketing, there’s real thought given to how we promote a movie, and how we think about for whom is this?
And then we think about and movie into the home entertainment window, transactional and non-transactional, through traditional television, and so on. And 100 years from now, these movies will be part of our heritage and our catalog. When we greenlight a movie today, we’re always thinking about those future generations. We’re always thinking about being the guardians of that legacy of cinema-making.
StudioCanal is also actively looking at book adaptations, right?
Yes, there’s a real opportunity in books to movies and books to TV series. We launched a label called StudioCanal Stories with Maxime Saada’s support. He’s a believer in this, too. The label is led by a woman called Sarah Reese Geffroy, and we are very much focused on literary adaptations. In fact, I believe this year, half of our theatrical lineup here in France was actually literary adaptations. For example, we’re working on a family franchise at the moment based on the huge Asterix comic book series.
We’re also working on a film based on Victor Hugo’s infamous novel Les Misérables. We are making a really huge event movie that will be THE Christmas family movie in France this time next year, and it stars the best of the best of French cinema. Vincent Lindon, Noémie Merlant, Tahar Rahim, Camille Cottin.
Is there anything else you’d like to highlight?
We touched a little bit on TV series, which is a really important strategic pillar for us and a growth area of the business. It is led by M-K Kennedy, who is really building a very exciting business and has restructured it to really focus on scaling up the in-house English-language global television series business.
Also, we’re working with the greatest European talents, here on the continent, in the U.K. and beyond, and also looking to the U.S. for potential partnerships. We are constantly talking to some of the biggest players in the U.S. and beyond to really work together to make quality commercial entertainment that can travel the world.
And there is one last piece of news I want to highlight. I am very happy to say that StudioCanal is in the top three independent distributors in all of our seven territories where we distribute movies. We’re the number 1 independent distributor in Australia, in the Netherlands, in the U.K., and in France. We are very proud of that and will hopefully continue that trend. And between 2022 and 2024, StudioCanal’s global box office has actually tripled. So we’re also proud of that.
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