18/09/2002 - De Agostini publishing and spanish Grupo Planete announced their forthcoming strategies for the new multimedia colossum

DeAPlaneta, the result of the merger between Italy’s De Agostini and Spain’s Grupo Planeta announces plans to enter the film produce, distribute and programme films as well as television, home video and multimedia Italy’s De Agostini publishing and Spain’s Grupo Planeta announced their forthcoming strategies following their recent merger to form a new multimedia colossus called DeAPlaneta. The new company has capital assets of Euros 60 million and is presided over by Maurizio Carlotti, who said that DeA Planeta would begin operations in Spain and Portugal, with Italy and Latin America coming on-line later. DeAPlaneta intends entering the distribution, exhibition and film production sectors and is negotiating to that end with Spain’s leading art house film distributor and exhibitor, Alta Films.
DeAPlaneta has already set up a new film production company called Grunger, managed by Paulo Calpe, which will make about five features annually, each budgeted at between Euros 1.9 million and Euros 2.9 million, and aimed principally at the Spanish language market. The first film to be made by the new company will be Salvador Garcia Ruiz’s Las voces de la noche (The Other Side).
In partnership with Spain’s MediaPro, DeAPlaneta has also set up a TV film production house called Prodigious.

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