# Gaumont (company)

Gaumont SA (French:) is a French film and television production and distribution company headquartered in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. Founded by the engineer-turned-inventor Léon Gaumont (1864–1946) in 1895, it is the oldest extant film company in the world, established before other studios such as Pathé (founded in 1896), Titanus (1904), Nordisk Film (1906), Universal, Paramount, and Nikkatsu (all founded in 1912).
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 (chairman) and Sidonie Dumas (CEO).

## 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 (from the normal French pronunciation of the founder's initials L-G) in La Villette, France were the largest in the world. Gaumont began producing full-length feature films in 1908.
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. 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 (1935) and The Lady Vanishes (1938). Along with its competitor Pathé Frères, Gaumont dominated the motion picture industry in Europe 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 (e.g., the advent of sound movies). 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 later years of World War II, Gaumont was affected by the financial ruin of France's economy as well as the physical destruction of its facilities. The company ceased production until 1947. 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 (e.g., nudity), 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 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 (La Boum, La Chèvre, the Belmondo films etc.), 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.
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 (due to the emergence of private television stations) 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 (the other being La Cinq) 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.
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 (any language other than English) 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 (NEF) 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.

## Production

Gaumont currently has 938 films in its catalogue, most of which are in French; however there are some exceptions such as Luc Besson's The Fifth Element (1997). Among the most notable films produced by Gaumont are the serials Judex (1916) and Fantômas (1913); the comic Onésime series, starring Ernest Bourbon; and the comic Bébé series, starring five-year-old René Dary. The two biggest films to which Gaumont owns the rights are Jean-Marie Poiré's Les Visiteurs, with a box-office of $98 million, and the 2011 blockbuster Intouchables by Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano, with a box office of $427 million.
Abel Gance, a director and the early animator Emile Cohl worked for the studio at one time or another. The company has also produced television shows, including seven animated series: Highlander: The Animated Series, Space Goofs, The Magician, Dragon Flyz, F Is for Family, and Sky Dancers (the second and third are based on their respective toy lines), and the very popular Oggy and the Cockroaches. The company also began production in its American unit Gaumont International Television on two series: Hannibal and Hemlock Grove. The studio has been described as a mini-major studio.

## Corporate structure

Ciné Par is a majority shareholder with 69.92% of the voting rights: this entity is controlled by CEO Nicolas Seydoux. The other private shareholders are First Eagle Investment Management, Bolloré, and Groupe Industriel Marcel Dassault. The company has a free float of 416,784 shares, which represents 9.75% of the capital and 5.99% of the voting rights.

## Financial information

In the first half of 2012, Gaumont recorded a profit of €7.7 million, which reversed the €0.6 million loss from the first half of 2011. The profit was driven by a 49% increase in revenue, which reached €50.1 million. The company cited the continued effects of Intouchables, which increased International revenues by 153%. Gaumont's market capitalization as of January 2010 is €164 million.

## Logo

Léon Gaumont selected the ox-eye daisy as the company logo to pay homage to his mother, whose first name was Marguerite (Daisy). Its first appearance dates back to March 16, 1903 when Léon Gaumont registered the first version of the daisy (slightly resembling a sunflower), with the Elgé inscription in the center, French phonetic version of the founder's initials. (L. G.) Elge was renamed Gaumont lorsque when the company was renamed Société des Établissements Gaumont in 1906. Léon Gaumont requires the brand to be present in “at least one scene from each strip and even two scenes".
Throughout the decades the logo has been redesigned several times, but the daisy has always remained present, even though its significance has been largely forgotten. The latest redesign is from 2010, and takes up the principle of the halo of petals: the red daisy has twelve irregular petals which take the form of a luminous halo around the letter G. The logo, made by Lorène Bruant for the Les Quatre Lunes agency, is inspired by the praxinoscope to create dynamism and adopts a tailor-made, sans-serif typography. Designed for the screen again by the Bronx agency, it is soundtracked by the first bars of the well-known aria (cavatina) Casta Diva from the opera Norma composed by Vincenzo Bellini.