MadRiver Pictures Acquires ‘Project Greenlight’ Outfit Adaptive Studios — Cannes
EXCLUSIVE: Marc Butan’s MadRiver Pictures has acquired LA-based film and TV production outfit Adaptive Studios, we can reveal, in a deal which will see MadRiver absorb Adaptive’s existing IP library and assets.
Adaptive Studios co-founder Marc Joubert will join MadRiver, overseeing Adaptive’s existing library, with MadRiver also due to ramp up internal staffing. Adaptive’s credits to date include HBO’s Project Greenlight and Netflix pic Coin Heist.
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Adaptive’s shareholders will become investors in MadRiver. Deal points were not disclosed but according to those across the transaction, the pact places an eight-figure valuation on four-year-old MadRiver. CAA Media Finance consulted on the transaction.
Adaptive last year raised $16.5M in Series B funding led by minority investors AMC Networks and Atwater Capital. The company, which was founded in 2013 by Perrin Chiles, TJ Barrack and Joubert, has specialized in un-produced screenplays, which it has acquired and often published in book form, adapting from there to the screen. It has also built a slate of digital series.
“We are incredibly excited to join forces with Adaptive including its co-founder Marc Joubert, as well as top tier investors in the space, AMC Networks and Atwater Capital,” said MadRiver CEO Marc Butan, formerly of Sierra/Affinity and Lionsgate. “Adaptive’s deep IP library will provide MadRiver with a wealth of titles to develop for film and television, both for theatrical and the streaming market, and together with the increased investment, allows MadRiver to take the next step in its evolution.”
Film production and sales firm MadRiver, which is backed by a lone private investor, is currently in production on What Is Life Worth starring Michael Keaton and directed by Sara Colangerlo and is in post on James Gray’s Ad Astra starring Brad Pitt for Fox and New Regency. The IMR International slate, which is the foreign sales arm of MadRiver, includes Scott Z. Burns’ The Report starring Adam Driver, which Amazon acquired after its premiere in Sundance; Black Flies with Mel Gibson and Tye Sheridan; Guy Ritchie’s Bush and King of the Jungle with Seth Rogen and Keaton, both of which will be distributed by STX in the U.S.
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