Leone Film Group Celebrates 35 Years With a Big Boost in International Pic Production

May 2024 · 9 minute read

Italy’s Leone Film Group is taking the legacy of its founder, spaghetti Western master Sergio Leone, to the next level.

As the Rome-based company run by the maestro’s children, Raffaella and Andrea, celebrates its 35th anniversary, it continues to consolidate its standing as the preeminent supplier of U.S. indie product to Italy. The Leone’s film and TV production side has been recently growing with a robust slate of high-end content for the international market.

Having become the top distribution partner in Italy for U.S. indies such as Lionsgate, STX Entertainment, Voltage and Black Bear, the Leone Film Group is now focused on what Raffaella Leone calls the “more difficult task” of “laying the groundwork for our production side in the international arena.”
The group’s Lotus Production label, which is now run directly by Raffaella, has a slew of projects in various stages, with new films by James Gray, Isabel Coixet and Gabriele Muccino. As it ramps up its production division, LFG is busy forging close ties with a galaxy of production partners, from Spain’s Mediapro to Ridley Scott’s Scott Free, to Rodrigo Teixeira’s Brazil-based RT Features and “The White Lotus” producer David Bernad.

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“We are driven by a strong desire to work as producers with international companies on an equal footing,” says Raffaella, who is the company’s co-owner and CEO.

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This boost to Leone’s production side is taking place against a backdrop of upheavals in Hollywood caused by strikes and mergers. And LFG’s ambitions are unfolding amid consolidation in the Italian market where, following several foreign buyouts of their competitors, LFG is now one of the few fully Italian-owned companies left standing.

All the uncertainty and activity is opening doors for non-U.S. players in the global content arena.
“Our goal is it to remain an Italian company, and actually do the opposite: acquire or merge with an international company that could be Spanish or possibly American,” say Raffaella and Andrea. This desire to expand is not dictated by “delusions of grandeur,” they add, but because “that’s where the market is going and also due to the scale of projects we want to produce.”

A look at the LFG production pipeline:

Untitled James Gray project

Produced by LFG in tandem with Teixeira (“Armageddon Time”), who said in a statement: “It’s such an honor to work on a film with the Leone family. I started my career in the film industry partly because of Sergio Leone’s legacy. When the opportunity to co-produce a new film by James Gray with Raffaella and Andrea Leone came, it was a dream come true.” Details of the project, which will be Gray’s next film, are being kept under wraps.

Days of Abandonment

Penelope Cruz will star in Coixet’s English-language adaptation of Italian author Elena Ferrante’s novel of the same name, and a screenplay by “The Affair” co-creator Sarah Treem. “Abandonment” is set to reunite the two top Spanish talents following their collaboration on another U.S.-set film, the 2008 drama “Elegy.” That film is an adaptation of Philip Roth’s novella “The Dying Animal,” about an affair between a professor (played by Ben Kingsley) and his student (Cruz).

Deep Red remake

LFG has teamed up with “White Lotus” producer Bernad on a contemporary remake of Dario Argento’s 1975 horror classic.

Siracusa

Filmmaker Gabriele Muccino — whose Hollywood credits include Will Smith-starrer “The Pursuit of Happyness” — will direct this English-language adaptation of Delia Ephron’s novel “Siracusa.” The source material follows two couples and a child who take a vacation on the sun-drenched coast of the Ionian Sea in Sicily, and becomes “a thriller” of sorts, says Raffaella. Muccino’s Sicily-set romantic thriller “Here Now,” starring Elena Kampouris (“My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3”), also produced by LFG, will be released in Italy in October.

Scandalo

Paolo Genovese (“Perfect Strangers”) will direct this reconstruction of the love triangle involving director Ingrid Bergman, neo-realism master Roberto Rossellini and actor Anna Magnani, based on the book “Gli amanti del vulcano” (“The Volcano Lovers”) by Italian journalist Marcello Sorgi. The screenplay is by Francesco Piccolo (“My Brilliant Friend”) and Genovese.

Joan of Arc project

LFG and Scott Free are developing this project, promising a new take on the French icon. It’s an adaptation of a chapter of a bestselling book by Italian historian Alessandro Barbero, who describes Joan as a woman “who headed an army dressed as a man and paid with her life for that challenge to the rules of her time.”

Love Me, Love Me

American director Roger Kumble (“Cruel Intentions”) will direct the first instalment of the phenomenally successful Wattpad novels trilogy by Stefania S. “Love Me, Love Me” centers on 16-year-old June, who becomes entangled in a love triangle with two boys who are best friends and uncovers hidden truths. Lotus is producing with Amazon MGM Studios in collaboration with Wattpad Webtoon Studios. Prime Video will release globally.

Leone Film Group “understand the importance of audience engagement and fandom, which is critical to our studio,” says Aron Levitz, president of Wattpad Webtoon Studios. “We take great pride in partnering with such a legendary studio and are excited to continue making content with Leone Film Group and the talented team at Lotus Production,” he adds.

The Leone Film Group milestones:

1989

Sergio Leone sets up a company to help make “Leningrad,” his long-gestating dream project, but he died that year. During the ensuing years, two of his three children, Raffaella and Andrea, go into business selling TV movies as Leone Film Group after cutting their teeth managing rights of two Westerns they inherited from their father: “Once Upon a Time in the West” and “Duck, You Sucker!”  

2001

After a decade during which they forged relationships with U.S. indies and supplied product to most Italian broadcasters, accu-mulating a substantial library, Raffaella and Andrea take the plunge into theatrical with Steven Soderbergh’s “Traffic.” They also start broadening their market activity from TV to additional platforms, including pay TV and home video.  

2009

LFG moves into local production with youth comedy “Generazione 1,000 Euro.”  

2012

LFG signs its first multi-year output deal for theatrical with DreamWorks (Amblin/Storyteller). 

2013

Shingle inks a multi-year output deal with Summit Entertainment and, by extension, Lionsgate. Pacts with FilmNation and other U.S. players follow.

Start of close collaboration with RAI Cinema’s 01 Distribution. First key titles are “Rush” and “The Wolf of Wall Street.”  

LFG flotation kicks off on Dec. 19 as Ennio Morricone’s score for “Once Upon a Time in the West” plays inside Milan stock exchange.

2014

LFG acquires production company Lotus.

2015

Lionsgate gives LFG a mandate to become their executive producer on “John Wick 2,” the first of several big U.S. productions they’ve serviced in Italy.

2016

Lotus produces its first TV series, “Immaturi,” and starts developing international shows. Its more recent TV series include Disney+’s “The Lions of Sicily” (2023) and upcoming Naples-set show “Uonderbois,” about kids who roam the city’s underbelly led by a Robin Hood-like character, also for Disney+.  

2018

Lionsgate’s family drama “Wonder” scores its best European haul in Italy with $13.8 million. Gabriele Muccino’s ensemble dramedy “A Casa Tutti Bene” (“There Is No Place Like Home”) is Italy’s top local hit.  

2019

LFG sees success in Italy with “Mia and the White Lion,” “Vice,” “Green Book” and “After.” 

Shingle inks exclusive first-window 30-month deal with Amazon. Sky has second window.

2020

Muccino’s “Gli Anni Più Belli” (“The Best Years”) sees its high-grossing release cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic.

2021

LFG-produced teen romancer “Time Is Up” starring Bella Thorne is the highest-grossing limited-event release of the year in Italian cinemas.

Partnership with Amazon extended thanks to stellar results achieved by LFG-distributed product on the Prime Video platform, espe-cially with the “After” film franchise. “They are the gold standard in distribution,” says “After” producer Nicolas Chartier, head of Voltage Pictures. “And their father is my favorite director!”

The Prime Video partnership expands with the launch of a curated Leone “Once Upon a Time” channel of top Italian titles from LFG’s library.

2022

Raffaella Leone takes the reins at Lotus.

2023

LFG releases 11 titles theatrically, four of which self-produced, among them Micaela Ramazzotti’s “Felicità” (“Happiness”), which premieres at the Venice Film Festival.

2024

Italian billionaire Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio buys a 13.78% of LFG through his LMDV Capital, “driven by a desire to help the group stay in Italian hands and grow,” says Raffaella Leone.

Raffaella Leone is awarded the Cavaliere del Lavoro (Order of Merit for Labour) medal in recognition of the prominence she has attained as an Italian entrepreneur.

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