Luc Besson's Growing Film Empire

The box-office successes of Europacorp's Taken and Transporter have put the studio on a fast-growth trajectory

By Carol Matlack

Luc Besson Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

There's nothing like a recession to make Americans go to the movies. U.S. box-office receipts in February were a record $770 million. But the top-grossing movie of the month wasn't American—it was French. Taken, an action thriller starring Liam Neeson, is the first U.S. megahit for French film mogul Luc Besson. And Besson is working hard to make sure it won't be the last.

Besson, 49, best known until now as the director of such films as The Big Blue and The Fifth Element in the 1980s and 1990s, has worked mainly as a producer for the past decade. His Paris-based Europacorp (ECP.PA) studio posted $186 million in revenues last year, making it second only to Germany's Constantin Film (CFAG.DE) as Europe's largest independent studio.

Nearly one-third of Europacorp revenues come from box-office and DVD sales outside France—no surprise, since many of Besson's productions, including Taken, are in English. "We have a diplomatic passport; we're equally at ease in France, Japan, Germany, and the U.S.," Besson says in an interview at his headquarters in an elegant mansion a few blocks from the Champs-Elysées.

Selling Fast Action

Ambling around the premises clad in a rumpled track suit and T-shirt, the bearded, rotund Besson doesn't look much like a businessman, but he certainly seems to understand what audiences like. "Of the 65 films we've made, only three or four were not profitable," he says.

Far from introspective French art-house fare, Besson's specialty is action flicks like Taken, and the Taxi and Transporter series. Coming up soon: From Paris with Love, starring John Travolta as a rogue American secret agent on a mission in Paris.

Occasionally, Besson steps in to direct a film, as he did with the 2006 animated film Arthur and the Minimoys (released in America as Arthur and the Invisibles). But these days he's rarely on the set, instead devoting his time to overseeing production and distribution of at least 10 films a year—and nurturing his growing Paris-based film empire. The success of Taken will only help. "It's one of the highest-grossing pictures of its kind, ever," says Brandon Gray, publisher of the Hollywood news Web site boxofficemojo.com. "Coming off that success, there'll be many opportunities for Mr. Besson."

A Lean and Nimble Outfit

To help run Europacorp, which has been listed on the Paris stock exchange since 2007, Besson last year brought aboard Jean-Julien Baronnet, a former chemical-industry executive. Baronnet is helping Besson keep a close eye on production costs, which have been a key advantage for Europacorp. Besson says the studio secured the rights to produce the 2007 film Hitman after promising to keep costs below $30 million—compared with a $55 million budget that had been proposed by Fox (NWS). Taken, which cost only $25 million to make, has already logged more than $118 million in U.S. box-office receipts and more than $70 million outside the U.S.

With a full-time staff of only about 100, Europacorp is a lean operation with much lower overhead than big U.S. studios, Besson says. And it's nimble: For example, when the studio learned last August that Warner Bros. (TWX) was delaying release of the latest Harry Potter film from November 2008 until mid-2009, it took advantage of the delay by speeding up production of its Transporter 3 sequel, which also appealed to teenage audiences. The film was produced in less than three months and released last November, grossing almost $100 million to date.