Seville Films ceases theatrical distribution of films
Shockwaves in the cinema world since Tuesday evening: the company Entertainment One ceases the distribution of theatrical films in Canada. As a subsidiary of eOne, Les Films Seville had to lay off several of its employees as soon as the news broke.
Les Films Seville is one of the largest film distributors in Quebec. The exact number of employees who were let go on Tuesday is not known, but according to the Business Register, the subsidiary has between 50 and 99 employees in Quebec.
The news could be confirmed to The Pressby the president of Seville Films and president, cinema distribution, of Entertainment One Patrick Roy, who is leaving his functions, his contract having ended this week. “Seville continues to exist,” he told La Presse. Some employees keep their jobs, particularly in the technical and financial sectors. There is also still a team in place for catalog management. The changes announced on Tuesday only affect theatrical distribution.”
The reasons that may have led eOne, a company acquired by Hasbro in 2019, to make this decision are still unknown, however. Could the pandemic, which has had an impact on the film industry, have something to do with it?
Seville Films was founded at the end of 1999 following the acquisition of the Behavior catalog. The company was later acquired by eOne in 2007. In 2012, eOne bought Alliance Vivafilm and merged the two distributors, which took the name Les Films Sevilla.
Quebec films distributed by Seville include The Seven Days of Retaliation, Mommy, 1991, Starbuck and Fires. International titles include Divergence, Hunger Games, John Wick, Paddington and Twilight em>.
The distributor still has several Quebec titles to distribute soon, including Lignes de Fide, which will be released on July 6th. “There is a responsibility to respect and there is no need to worry about all this, assured Patrick Roy in an interview with La Presse. There will be no negative impact on the films and producers we work with.”
