Gaumont
Gaumont SA is a French film and television production and distribution company headquartered in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. Founded by the engineer-turned-inventor Léon Gaumont in 1895, it is the oldest extant film company in the world, established before other studios such as Pathé, Titanus, Nordisk Film, Universal, Paramount, and Nikkatsu.
Gaumont predominantly produces, co-produces, and distributes films, and in 2011, 95% of Gaumont's consolidated revenues came from the film division. The company is also a producer of TV series through Gaumont Télévision and animation through Gaumont Animation as well as its existing French production features. Gaumont is run by Nicolas Seydoux and Sidonie Dumas.
History
Originally dealing in photographic apparatus, the company began producing short films in 1897 to promote its make of camera-projector. Léon Gaumont's secretary Alice Guy-Blaché became the motion picture industry's first female director, and she went on to become the Head of Production of the Gaumont film studio from 1897 to 1907. From 1905 to 1914, its Cité Elgé studios in La Villette, France were the largest in the world. Gaumont began producing full-length feature films in 1908.In 1908, Gaumont released La Fantasmagori, directed by Émile Cohl, considered the first animated film.
Gaumont also launched into movie theaters around 1908. In 1911, Gaumont opened the largest cinema in the world, the Gaumont Palace, which was located in Paris and had up to 6,400 seats. It was demolished in 1973.
In 1913, Louis Feuillade, artistic director of the company, persuaded Léon Gaumont to acquire the rights to the Fantômas series of novels. The adaptation was a significant success. Louis Feuillade's Fantômas, regarded as the first cinematic serial, marked a major turning point in film history. The series not only enabled the Gaumont company to compete with Pathé, the global leader in cinema at the time, but also launched the popularity of the cinematic serial and played a key role in popularizing suspense and detective thrillers, genres that were relatively uncommon at the time.
From 1914 to 1915, Léonce Perret took over as artistic director of Gaumont after Louis Feuillade's departure for the front.
Louis Feuillade was demobilized in 1915 due to heart problems. He took the opportunity to return to the Gaumont studio. At the same time, competitor Pathé was preparing to release its cinematic serial The Perils of Pauline and in France. Léon Gaumont then commissioned Louis Feuillade to create a series to counter that of Charles Pathé, which gave birth to the director's most iconic work: Les Vampires, a cinematic serial of ten episodes, released at a rate of one per month Filming conditions, in the midst of the First World War, were particularly difficult: the actors could be mobilized at any moment. Gaumont and Louis Feuillade adapted by masking secondary characters, or by killing off protagonists whose actors were going to be mobilized. The script was created day by day to be able to adjust. Les Vampires became one of Gaumont's biggest successes and popularized the archetype of the femme fatale throughout the world, notably thanks to the character of Irma Vep, played by the actress Musidora.
The company manufactured its own equipment and mass-produced films until 1907, when Louis Feuillade became the artistic director of Gaumont. When World War I broke out, he was replaced by Léonce Perret, who continued his career in the United States a few years later. Finally, Louis Feuillade returned to Gaumont during the First World War after being demobilized in 1915. In 1909 the company participated in the Paris Film Congress, a failed attempt by European producers to create a cartel similar to that of the MPPC in the United States.
Gaumont opened foreign offices and acquired the theatre chain Gaumont British, which later notably produced several films directed by Alfred Hitchcock such as The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes. Along with its competitor Pathé Frères, Gaumont dominated the motion picture industry in the world until the outbreak of World War I in 1914.
After World War I, Gaumont suffered economic losses owing to increased competition from American Hollywood productions. In 1925, the studio's output decreased to only three films. In addition, Gaumont was unable to keep pace with the cost of technological changes.
In 1927, Warner Bros appropriated the invention of talking pictures with the film The Jazz Singer, while Léon Gaumont had succeeded in making sound films as early as 1902 with his invention, the chronophone, which Alice Guy used extensively by shooting hundreds of phonoscenes. Thanks to the patents he had filed at the time, the Gaumont company filed a complaint against Warner Bros, and after a legal battle lasting nearly 20 years, won the case.
Struck by mounting debts in the early 1930s and the effects of the Great Depression, Gaumont declared bankruptcy in 1935. In 1937, the studio ceased production and operated only as a theater and distribution company. The company was purchased by the French corporation Havas in 1938, was renamed Société Nouvelle des Etablissements Gaumont, and reopened its film production studio.
During the Second World War, Gaumont was severely affected by censorship, with all of its films produced before 1937 being banned and withdrawn from circulation. The company’s production capacity was greatly reduced during this period, and it was forced to contend with a new competitor endowed with considerable resources, Continental Films, created by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. Despite these constraints, Gaumont nevertheless managed to produce nine films between 1942 and the liberation, including Les Cadets de l’Océan by Jean Dréville and Le Journal tombe à 5 heures, the first film produced by Alain Poiré, who would later become one of Gaumont’s most prominent producers. At the time of the Liberation, Gaumont reported 240 employees killed or missing since the beginning of the war, as well as several cinemas destroyed.
In 1947, the company released Antoine et Antoinette, which became the first major post-war commercial success produced by the group. The film was produced by Alain Poiré, who had by then taken over as head of the company’s production division.
During that time, Gaumont partnered with Compagnie Parisienne de Location de Films to produce and distribute films and co-marketed together, until CPLF was renamed to Gaumont Distribution. However, the global interest in French New Wave films in the 1950s, as well as the permissiveness within French films, allowed French productions to successfully compete against an American cinema that was still burdened by conservative moral codes. The period was to see the return to prominence of Gaumont Studios.
In the 1960s, Gaumont's production division recovered with the success of Les Tontons Flingueurs, as well as numerous successful films starring the famous French actor Louis de Funès.
In 1970, media tycoon and French old money heir multimillionaire Nicolas Seydoux started managing Gaumont and becomes a vice-president at the company. Within two years he puts into place a restructuring phase and halted its productions, with Seydoux imposing his veto on certain projects. he personally owned 60% of the shares and 70% of the votes. It was likely that the new policy imposed was to change its production structure, with less "mainstream" films. Although he had a significant number of box-office hits, Alain Poiré had his place in danger, following the failure of Rum Runners, which was a costly production.
In 1972, Schlumberger put up Gaumont for sale: Rum Runners didn't help recoup its losses. Ambitious producer Jean-Pierre Rassam intended to acquire Gaumont with Seydoux and Toscan du Plantier and had promised various projects to bail out the company, but the balance sheet of his company Ciné qua non did not play into this his favor between the budget overruns or commercial failures of the films Chinese in Paris, Don't Touch the White Woman! and Lancelot du Lac. The Schlumberger group sells its shares, estimated at 40%, to Nicolas Seydoux and Daniel Toscan du Plantier.
With these events, Nicolas Seydoux succeeds his brother Jérome Seydoux at the front of the company. The policy he undertook reconciled popular films and those with a more restricted audience: Alain Poiré ultimately remained in his position, to continue the production of major popular films, and Seydoux appointed Daniel Toscan du Plantier as its general manager. René Bonnell, Gaumont's distribution director from 1978 to 1982, explains that Seydoux had to coexist a Tuscan du Plantier, who arrived in 1976-1977 and who wanted to change everything, with a more traditional Poiré. On the economic level, Poiré was the financial support of the group thanks to all its big successes, and their theatrical runs in the halls was modernized by Nicolas Seydoux. Concerning Toscan, that the economic balance of his interventions was proven, but he was the essential complement, young, open, to a house which needed this touch of madness. A house whose imaginary value, apart from balance sheet values, was increased by this extraordinary abundance around Tuscan.
Between 1974 and 2000, the production division achieved numerous successes, producing and distributing French films that went on to become cult classics, such as the trilogy "Now Where Did the 7th Company Get to ?" which parodies the total defeat of French troops against German troops during the beginning of the Second World War, the first films of Luc Besson, which were shot in English and most of them with an American cast, such as Subway, Léon the Professional, The Big Blue, The Fifth Element or even La Femme Nikita. Gaumont also produces a huge number of cult comedies in France, notably La Chèvre, Les Visiteurs, Le Grand Blond avec Une Chaussure noire ans Le retour du Grand Blond and The Dinner Game not to be confused with the American remake "Dinner for Schmucks" which is not produced by Gaumont and which received negative feedback.
In this period, Gaumont bought shares in some media assets. In 1978, the company became the part-owner of a US cable channel, Telefrance USA, followed in 1981 by a share in Le Point, a conservative magazine. In 1983, its US cable outlet ceased due to a lack of an interested buyer, while at the same time, the company was reporting losses, causing the shutdown of its Italian branch as well as the sale of its Brazilian branch. In 1986, it was part of the Gilbert Gross-led consortium that set up TV6, the channel closed down after one year on air due to the complex political scenario after the 1986 legislative elections, where the two new channels were granted without a legal tender. Gaumont's share in Le Point, by then at over 80%, was sold to Générale Occidentale in September 1993.
In the 1990s, the company operated TV and multimedia divisions, which was divested at the end of the 1990s. The television division was sold to company executive Christian Carret, who turned it into GTV, while the multimedia division's animation unit were sold to management and renamed Xilam, and the multimedia division continued producing video games until 2004.
On 2 February 2000, Philippe Binant, technical manager of Digital Cinema Project at Gaumont, realized the first digital cinema projection in Europe with the Texas Instruments prototype projector. From 1993 to early 2004, Gaumont and Disney had a partnership for producing films for theater distribution.
In 2001, Gaumont spun off the cinema division into a joint venture with Pathé since known as Les Cinémas Gaumont Pathé. Gaumont owned a 34% stake in the entity, which controls a large cinema network in France, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. As of 2011, this stake was worth €214 million. In 2004, Gaumont continued its development with Pathé to set up another joint venture, Gaumont-Pathé Archives. Gaumont owns 57.5% of this entity, which contains newsreels, documentaries, and silent movies from the 20th and 21st centuries. From early 2004 to 2007, the company had a partnership with Sony for producing films and for theater and DVD distribution worldwide. And for many years, Gaumont's home video division was a joint venture with Sony Pictures. Currently, Gaumont distributes its films through Paramount Home Media Distribution on video in France. At the end of 2007, Gaumont took over the French animation studio Alphanim for €25 million and renamed it Gaumont Alphanim. As of 2013, it is known as Gaumont Animation.
Gaumont produced in 2006 and 2009 two French films that have since become cult classics, OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies and OSS 117: Lost in Rio. While they are parodies of James Bond, they became cult films because they go beyond simple parody, combining retro spy adventure with politically incorrect satire and biting humor.
On 16 December 2010, Gaumont acquired a 37.48% stake in the share capital of the Légende company and its subsidiaries for €6.6 million. Légende is a full-length film and television series production and distribution company managed by Alain Goldman. As of 2011, the Légende stake is worth €6.3 million. 2011 was the year that Gaumont opened its Gaumont International Television division in Los Angeles.
In 2011, Gaumont co-produced and co-distributed The Intouchables, which became France's highest-grossing movie of all time.
The international release of The Intouchables was equally successful, trumping previous international blockbusters such as Harry Potter and Transporters in Germany. Intouchables is the highest-grossing foreign-language movie beating the previous record of $275 million by the Japanese Spirited Away. The film was a major catalyst for Gaumont's boosting fourth-quarter 2011 cinema sales to €47.9 million, up 651% year on year. The film's success turned a half-year 2011 loss to a record annual €26 million profit. The Intouchables currently has a box office of $361 million.
In 2012, Gaumont acquired the production company Nouvelles Éditions de Films for €3.1 million. The company was previously run and created by cinema legend Louis Malle. As part of the acquisition, Gaumont now owns the entire Malle collection, including Ascenseur pour l'échafaud, Atlantic City, and Au Revoir les Enfants. In February 2012, Gaumount restarted its television division which had been defunct for about ten years. On 2 May 2016 according to Deadline Hollywood, Gaumont teamed with Lionsgate, and seven other international companies to launch the Globalgate Entertainment consortium. Globalgate will produce and distribute local-language films in markets around the world. Lionsgate said it had partnered with international entertainment executives Paul Presburger, William Pfeiffer and Clifford Werber to launch Globalgate. In 2019, Gaumont was replaced by TF1 Studio as Globalgate's new French member. On 1 March 2017, Gaumont sold its 34% stake in Les Cinémas Gaumont Pathé to Pathé for $400 million in order to focus on production.
In January 2018, it was announced that the company's first office, in Cologne, Germany, would open in July 2018. The office was to focus on development and production of premiere drama programming, according to film producer and new manager Sabine de Mardt.
One month later in February of that same year following Gaumont's launch of its German production unit in Germany, Gaumont launched a British television production division and second office based in London, England marking its second expansion and a return to the British production industry after selling its division Gaumont-British in 1940s with former Kudos producer Alison Jackson leading the UK division.