Zodiak-owned film and drama company Yellow Bird begins its planned international expansion, by entering the German market.
Yellow Bird will set up a new production company based in Munich. The start up is a joint venture together with Oliver Schündler, who will run the company as Managing Director. Mr Schündler is currently head of Bavaria Media Television, the international unit of one of Germany’s largest production groups.
“I am very happy to announce that Yellow Bird has now taken this first step towards a broad international expansion”, says Patrick Svensk, CEO and President of Zodiak Television. “The Yellow Bird business is crucial to our strategy of building a strong rights catalogue which we can capitalise on in all our territories.”
The Munich company will focus on cinema feature films and TV fiction for the German speaking market. Initial productions will be based on rights that Yellow Bird already controls, which will shorten the time to market for the company.
“By tapping in-to the rights catalogue that we have already built, we expect the German business to be profitable much quicker than what is normally the case for a drama start up”, says Mikael Wallén, MD of Yellow Bird.
Germany has long been an important market for Yellow Bird. The Swedish Wallander movies, as well as other previous productions, have received substantial financing from German broadcasters.
“Entering this market is a very logical step for us. We already have well established relations with Germany’s biggest broadcasters and several of the authors which we have the rights to produce, for example Henning Mankell, are very popular in the country”, says Mikael Wallén.
For more information, please contact:
Mikael Wallén
MD, Yellow Bird
+46-704 31 21 15
Erik Hultkvist
Business Development, Yellow Bird
+46-739 37 05 16
Yellow Bird Pictures in Germany
