After ‘Army of Thieves’: Where German Producer Pantaleon Films Will Go Next
It’s taken Pantaleon Films 13 years to get exactly where it always wanted to be. When producers Dan Maag and Marco Beckmann launched the company, then called Pantaleon Entertainment, in 2009 together with German actor Matthias Schweigh?fer, the idea was to produce films out of Europe for the global market.
But first, Pantaleon had to build a reputation, which it did with German-language features, most of them — What a Man (2011), The Manny (2015), The Most Beautiful Day (2016) — leveraging Schweigh?fer’s star power to become local box office hits. Pantaleon moved into TV production in 2017 with You Are Wanted, Amazon’s first German series, also starring Schweigh?fer, which ran for 12 episodes across two seasons.
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Along the way, the company expanded and diversified, adding a film and TV services division, Pantaleon Studios; a VOD platform and VOD services group, Pantaleon Techologies; an advertising and corporate consultancy group with cc15; and, most recently, the podcast outfit Pantaleon Sounds. It all operates under the umbrella of market-listed parent group Pantaflix AG.
In 2020, the company produced its first truly international feature: Resistance, starring Jesse Eisenberg as mime Marcel Marceau, in the true story of his fight with the French Resistance against the Nazis. Last year, it followed up with Army of Thieves, the Zack Synder-produced prequel to Army of the Dead, directed by and starring Schweigh?fer, which hit No. 1 on Netflix across more than 90 countries in October. Schweigh?fer is notable for his absence from Pantaleon’s upcoming German slate, which includes Hüseyin Tabak’s dramedy Oskars Kleid, the Alain Gsponer-directed Wolke Unterm Dach and Sky Original feature Orizzonte. “We never wanted to be just the Matthias Schweigh?fer show,” notes Maag.
Ahead of this year’s European Film Market, Pantaleon’s triumvirate of co-managing directors — Maag, Patrick Zorer and newly appointed Yoko Higuchi-Zitzmann — spoke to The Hollywood Reporter via video link about why, after 13 years, Pantaleon is just getting started.
With Resistance and Army of Thieves, Pantaleon produced its first two big English-language productions. Will that be your focus going forward?
Dan Maag That was always the goal. Matthias and I met during the making of The Red Baron [in 2008], which I produced. Even back then, the idea was to make a film from Germany that could go around the world. We analyzed the market and we saw that in Germany, if you built up a company in the right way, it could have international success. We started with [German-language] comedies, which were successful, but which, understandably, don’t travel much, but that helped us build the company. Now we’re firmly established, we’ve got a broad base of talent — we’re not just the Schweigh?fer company anymore — and we can move onto a bigger stage. We knew we had to first create a solid base, a good infrastructure. Now that we have that, we can take advantage of it. So these films are the first steps [into the international marketplace] but certainly not the last.
How did Matthias Schweigh?fer end up getting the job to not only star in, but also direct and, with Pantaleon, also produce Army of Thieves?
Maag Zack [Snyder] and Matthias got along incredibly well on Army of the Dead, and we started talking to Zack and Deborah Snyder about the whole idea of a Dead franchise, set in the world they created. And the more interesting Matthias’ role became [as German safe cracker Ludwig Dieter] in Army of the Dead, the more it became clear that character would work [in the prequel]. At one point, it was suggested Matthias direct as well. Netflix looked at his [German] films, we talked a lot and finally, we all decided to do this together.
It was a big step for Schweigh?fer to make Army of Thieves his English-language directorial debut…
Maag It was a big step. If I remember when he directed his first film, What a Man [2011], it was crazy. Matthias didn’t really know what a director’s assistant was for. He’s learned a huge amount since then. But we also stayed true to the people we worked with [on the German films], from the cameraman [Alexander Berner] to the production designer [Christian Eisele] and a lot of others behind the camera who came up with us. All the work we did in the past is paying off.
The collaboration with Netflix worked really, really well. And we are looking to develop a lot of other things for the English-speaking [and] global market. You can expect a few surprises in the coming weeks and months.
Patrick Zorer For example, we’re co-producing a high-end series for Sky, directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel [Downfall] with an amazing, truly international cast. We’re shooting in English with our Italian partners [Indiana Production].
Army of Thieves was a Netflix production. Resistance was a classic indie film, financed via presales. What model do you prefer?
Maag Budget-wise, the two films are comparable. But if you look at the two timelines, how long it takes to put things together, it’s completely different. Resistance took five years to get financed and is incredibly complex. You think you have all the financing together, everything’s ready, and then a part falls out and you have to start over again. It’s the typical story of having to take a project to the American Film Market three times to get it financed.
For Army of Thieves, you have great ideas from Zack and Matthias, Netflix says yes and we can start shooting. Then the film comes out on Netflix and it’s suddenly available worldwide, an unbelievable number of people can see it.
With Resistance, because it came out during the pandemic when cinemas were closed, it was hard to reach an audience. It was incredibly frustrating. But we aren’t giving up on cinemas. There are stories we want to tell that work better for the independent market. And there will be a time after the pandemic when people will come back to cinemas. Our structure is such that we can do both and we intend to.
Yoko Higuchi-Zitzmann, you just joined the company on Feb. 1. In your previous jobs, at Letterbox, Studio Hamburg and Constantin, you made your name primarily with mainstream, German-language productions. What will be your role at Pantaleon?
Yoko Higuchi-Zitzmann I was so happy when they asked me to join. Because Patrick and I, we have the same DNA, we were both pupils of [legendary German producer] Bernd Eichinger. We both worked for Constantin Film, we’ve known each other for 20 years and we were nursed on the same “mainstream” milk.
We think the same in terms of content: We want to make challenging stories that can reach a wide audience. I’m equally excited about doing feature films and series.
As Dan said, we’re passionate about cinema, we believe in cinemas. Theaters and distributors have had a hard time during the pandemic, but we believe in cinema’s comeback, and as creative producers we think we have a responsibility to be the driving force, to produce popular commercial films and bring them to theaters.
On the series side, I really want to make a workplace comedy. It’s a gap in the market here in Germany. There are incredible shows out of America, like The Office or Emily in Paris, where you have the dramatic and comedic and human conflict in a modern working environment coming together. I’d like to develop something equivalent for Germany. On the film side, we’re focusing on commercial projects for a younger audience. Like The History of Humanity, Slightly Abridged, a comedy we just finished with the crème de la crème of the German comedy scene — Christoph Maria Herbst, Bastian Pastewka and Carolin Kebekus — that Warner Bros. will release in cinemas later this year.
What role does Matthias Schweigh?fer play in the day-to-day running of the company?
Maag A smaller and smaller role, and that’s good. That was always the goal. We never wanted to be just the Matthias Schweigh?fer show. At the start, we of course used his position in the industry to help open doors for us, particularly to the creative community. But now we have those relationships. We’re doing our third film with [German actor-director] Florian David Fitz, for example. Of course, we still have projects that we develop together, particularly U.S. projects, and he’s an integral part of the company, he’s a founder and shareholder. We talk every day and he knows everything the three of us are doing. If we need him, he’s there.
We’ve seen a lot of consolidation in the independent production scene over the past year, particularly in Europe. Are you getting buyout offers, or are you looking to join up with other production outfits?
Maag We’re definitely looking at acquisitions or collaborations. Particularly with other European companies, companies in other German-speaking countries, but also other European outfits. My big dream is to form European alliances. We don’t need U.S. investors, we don’t need investors from Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. I look at things from a very European perspective. I think we can build on and accomplish a lot, also financially, in Europe. The American partners we talk to are very open for strong alliances. As long as you have the same creative vision and you don’t talk bullshit.
Zorer I worked for many years on the international side of the film business, and with our setup I think — and we’ve shown over the last few years — that, both from the creative and the structural side, we promise we can deliver. If I can quote what former Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit said about the city: “poor but sexy.” That’s how I see Pantaleon.
Maag It would be a lot easier to sell the company. We’re just not interested. Every time we’ve had those discussions, we realize what a good team we have. We don’t have to sell, so why should we? It’s still far too exciting and fun working together and with the creatives. If we were at the point where we thought, “Well, we’ve tried everything, now we have to sell the store,” [we would], but the funny thing is, at Pantaleon, we still have the feeling we are just getting started.
Interview edited for length and clarity.
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