The partnership builds on a strong and growing market dynamic: book adaptations consistently outperform on screen, both commercially and critically. Today, they represent around 40% of the top 100 global box-office while accounting for less than 10% of total film production, and underpin many of the most successful scripted series globally. At the same time, much of this potential remains untapped, with publishers still playing a limited role in the long-term value created by these adaptations. This opens a clear opportunity to rethink how literary IP is brought to screen, and to build a sustained pipeline of premium adaptations with global reach.
The joint venture will therefore originate and develop projects from Hachette Livre’s catalogue of over 100,000 titles, leveraging its position as a leading publishing group. It will strengthen its ability to bring literary works to the screen and capture greater value from its IP, while providing STUDIOCANAL with privileged access to a sustained pipeline of high-potential literary works.
STUDIOCANAL will act as the preferred studio partner, bringing its end-to-end capabilities across creative packaging, financing, production and international distribution, underpinned by a strong track record in premium literary adaptations. This builds on its existing strategy in this space, further strengthened by the launch of STUDIOCANAL Stories in 2024, a dedicated label focused on developing adaptations from literary IP, and proven know-how on growing and sustaining IP, as demonstrated by the global success of Paddington.
Arnaud Lagardère, CEO of Hachette Livre:
“I am thrilled about this partnership with STUDIOCANAL, which marks a new chapter in our ambition to build bridges from books to screen. By bringing in such complementary expertise, we are strengthening Hachette Livre’s strategic goals and further supporting the work carried out by our talented teams across the Group. This alliance reinforces our commitment to storytelling in all its forms, ensuring our content resonates across every platform”.
Maxime Saada, CEO of CANAL+:
“Great stories are at the heart of everything we do at CANAL+ and STUDIOCANAL. We are thus very happy to build this partnership with Hachette, one of the world’s leading publishing companies with an outstanding catalogue. It marks an important step in our strategy to develop premium content from strong intellectual property. By working more closely upstream, we will be able to tell these stories in a different way and make them travel globally”.
Hachette Livre and Studio Canal announce a strategic partnership to unlock the full potential of book-to-screen adaptations
A joint venture named “ON SCREEN” will be created to develop and scale premium film and television adaptations from Hachette Livre’s extensive catalogue, combining its depth of intellectual property with STUDIOCANAL’s end-to-end production and distribution capabilities.
ABOUT HACHETTE LIVRE
Hachette Livre is a subsidiary of Lagardère SA and the world’s third-largest mainstream publishing group (trade and educational). With revenue of €3,001 million in 2025, it is the market leader in France, number two in the UK, third in Spain, and third in the US (in trade publishing). The Group comprises over 200 imprints which together publish around 15,000 new titles each year in a dozen languages (mainly French, English and Spanish). Hachette Livre covers all segments of the mainstream publishing market: general fiction, nonfiction, paperbacks, children’s and YA books, illustrated books, travel guides, textbooks, study guides and partworks.
https://www.hachette.com/
ABOUT STUDIOCANAL (a CANAL+ Company)
STUDIOCANAL, the in-house studio of CANAL+, is Europe’s leading film and television studio.
Through its in-house operations and network of 23 production companies across Europe and the US, STUDIOCANAL finances, produces and distributes around half of the group’s 200 films and 80 series each year.
STUDIOCANAL owns one of the world’s most prestigious film libraries, including the largest catalogue of European films, with nearly 10,000 titles from 60 countries spanning a century of cinema. Since 2020, the studio has invested €25 million in the 4K restoration of 1,000 films, including Breathless, The Graduate, Terminator 2, and Love Actually.
Building on the global success of Paddington, STUDIOCANAL is scaling its franchise model through three new labels: STUDIOCANAL Stories, focused on adapting literary hits for film and TV; STUDIOCANAL Kids & Family, dedicated to building children’s entertainment franchises, and STUDIOCANAL ON STAGE, specialising in adapting films for live theatre.
canalplusgroup.com/en/group/content-production-distribution-and-other