The story
Founded by Luc Besson on Sep 2000.1
The company was created by Luc Besson in 1992 under the name Leeloo Productions, but it only fully began producing and co-producing feature films many years later, with the release of Taxi and The Dancer. The company was renamed EuropaCorp in 2000. Besson had also created a smaller production company called Les Films du Dauphin in 1990 that has existed outside of Leeloo Productions / EuropaCorp. Pierre-Ange Le Pogam, an old associate of Besson from Gaumont, the production company behind many earlier Besson's directed films, joined EuropaCorp in 2000. He had worked with Besson since 1985, first as a Distribution Director and from 1997 as a Deputy Chief Executive Officer at Gaumont. He became known as the right-hand man of Besson at EuropaCorp. He left the company in 2011 over disagreements with Besson.
In July 2007, EuropaCorp successfully managed its IPO on Euronext Paris. In May 2008, the CSA, French authority for media regulation, selected the EuropaCorp TV project in its invitation to apply for a mobile TV channel in France. In 2013, Lisa Ellzey, hitherto producer for Lionsgate and 20th Century Fox, was appointed as executive vice president of U.S. Motion Picture Production of EuropaCorp.
In 2018, Besson was accused of rape by an actress who wishes to remain anonymous. EuropaCorp stocks dropped 17% to just €2.31 ($2.70) after the rape allegation. Later in the same year, EuropaCorp sold its French television division to Mediawan and renamed into Storia Television. EuropaCorp also agreed to sell the Roissy Films library to Gaumont. The rape accusation resulted in a final dismissal by the Court of Cassation in 2023.
In May 2019, EuropaCorp was granted a six-month debt waiver from a French commercial court and placed under court protection. A week later the studio filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States. Its stock value had fallen to €0.67. It had no films in production by that time. In December 2019, the company was $182 million in debt and it had been in long bailout negotiations with the American investment fund Vine Alternative Investments.
In February 2020, Vine Alternative Investments acquired 60.15% of EuropaCorp with another American investment fund, Falcon Strategic Partners IV, acquired 6.25%.
In 2025 (and 2026 for the United States), EuropaCorp released Besson's Dracula, which became the company's biggest box office success since 2017. With over $40 million, it is the highest-grossing French film of 2025.
From Wikipedia’s article on EuropaCorp, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5