Gaumont, the venerable French studio which recently turned 130, reported stable revenue at €150 million (€172 million) in 2025 but saw its losses soar by 153% to €19.5 million, challenged by declining library deals and showdown in animation commissions.
But while its cinema business was down 23%, Gaumont saw its theatrical distribution activity skyrocket by 89% to €14 million, with strong box office performances for movies such as Franck Dubosc’s “A Bear in the Jura,” which sold 1.48 million admissions and won a Cesar Award for best original screenplay; Ken Scott’s “My Mother, God, and Sylvie Vartan,” which sold 1.5 million tickets and earned Leila Bekhti a best actress nomination at the Cesar Awards; Gilles de Maistre’s family adventure film “Moon the Panda” with 573,000 tickets, and Francois Ozon’s “The Stranger” – which competed at Venice and won a Cesar for supporting actor Pierre Lottin — with 767,000 admissions. Overall, Gaumont released eight films that garnered a total of 5 million theatrical admissions, compared to 2.3 million for ten films the previous year.
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Elsewhere, the film division was impacted by a 19-percent drop in sales to French broadcasters; and plummeting Pay 2 window deals. Sales to streamers were down by 64% to €10.9 million and international sales also fell by 9% to €14.8 million.
The group, which is listed at the Paris stock exchange and is headed by CEO Sidonie Dumas, has also taken into account in its 2025 results some anticipated losses on films that will be released in 2026.
Gaumont produced a raft of highly ambitious director-driven films slated for this year. These include Olivier Assayas’ Venice-premiering “The Wizard of the Kremlin” – an English-language political thriller budgeted in the $25-million range, starring Jude Law as Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Paul Dano as his spin doctor — which Gaumont released in France in late January and will be distributed by Vertical in the U.S. The company is also set to roll out Xavier Giannoli’s “Rays and Shadows,” a $34 million WWII-set drama starring Oscar-winning French actor Jean Dujardin (“The Artist”) as Jean Luchaire, a real-life journalist who became a powerful press baron under the protection of a Nazi ambassador.
The company will also soon be releasing Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache’s next crowdpleaser, “Just an Illusion,” a coming-of-age story following a 13-year-old teenager growing up in the 1980s in a Parisian suburb. Hailing from the directing duo behind “The Intouchables,” the film is packed with French stars, notably Camille Cottin (“Call My Agent!”), Louis Garrel (“Coutures”) and Pierre Lottin (“The Stranger”). Both “Rays and Shadows” and “Just an Illusion” will skip major festivals but have already pre-sold in a number of international territories, as we previously reported.
Gaumont, which was once a top purveyor of animated series for streamers, has been hit hard by their scaling down. The studio pointed to the “difficulties in the animation market and the absence of signed projects” in its press release. On the animation feature side, meanwhile, Gaumont has invested widely in the production of “High in the Clouds,” Paul McCartney’s anticipated 3D animated film which will boast a powerhouse voice cast including Céline Dion, Himesh Patel, Lionel Richie, Ringo Starr, Jimmy Fallon and Idris Elba.
The company is also still in business with streamers. It delivered part 4 of “Lupin” last year and will next have “Mexico 86” starring Berenice Bejo and Diego Luna, as well as the German spy thriller “Unfamiliar” on Netflix; and “The Hunt” on Apple (whose launch was delayed due to plagiarism allegations). Gaumont’s audiovisual production and distribution business brought €70.3 million in revenue in 2025, compared with €51.1 million in 2024.
Gaumont founder Nicolas Seydoux, who presides over the company’s supervisory council, addressed the industry’s headwinds during a board meeting in May last year, deploring that the “situation is complex.” “I don’t think even the oldest among us have ever seen anything this complex. Whether it’s in Europe or in the Near East. The situation is complex for Gaumont in that, not long ago, 40% of our revenue came from the United States,” he said, before talking about U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s threat of 100% tariffs on non-U.S. films.
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