Fremantle has made a strategic minority investment in Artists, Writers & Artisans, Inc. (AWA). AWA is an independent developer of bold and relevant stories across graphic fiction, film and television. This investment signifies a deepening of the initial partnership made between Fremantle and AWA in April 2022, which saw the companies come together to collaborate on co-developing a slate of TV projects based on AWA’s rapidly expanding IP library.

Fremantle and Lupa Systems co-led the investment round alongside new capital from long-term backers of AWA and a number of strategic individual investors with expertise in production, finance, sports, human rights and technology.

AWA Studios, AWA’s film and TV arm, will benefit from Fremantle’s strategic input and investment, whilst also unlocking the specialist expertise of the global content powerhouse, its infrastructure and its renowned international distribution footprint.

The two companies have announce that the first project on the joint development slate is Devil’s Highway, a thriller based on the successful comic series by Benjamin Percy and Brent Schoonover in which a young woman seeks to unravel a sinister mystery hidden in the dark underbelly of the long-haul trucking industry.

The expanded partnership was spearheaded by Andrea Scrosati, Fremantle’s Group COO and CEO Continental Europe, and Matthew Anderson, Co-Chair and President of AWA.

AWA is backed by Lupa Systems, Lightspeed Venture Partners and SISTER. Marvel alum Axel Alonso serves as Co-founder & Chief Creative Officer overseeing editorial output. In 2021, the company established AWA Studios, its film and TV division, helmed by Hollywood veteran Zach Studin as President. Matthew Anderson, Co-Chair and President, and Jon Miller, Co-Founder and Co-Chair, lead AWA’s executive team.

Since its launch, AWA Studios has quickly amassed a robust film and TV operation, kicked off by the announcement of feature film adaptations of Chariot by Bryan Edward Hill and Priscilla Petraites, which Warner Bros. acquired in competitive bidding; Marjorie Finnegan: Temporal Criminal by Garth Ennis and Goran Sudzuka, which Ruben Fleischer will direct; and Hotell by John Lees and Dalibor Talajic, to be directed by Elle Callahan, among many additional projects currently  in active development. 

In December, AWA formed a Creative Council including luminaries Reginald Hudlin, Gregg Hurwitz, Laeta Kalogridis, Joseph Kosinski, Al Madrigal and J. Michael Straczynski to help guide the company on complex creative matters and nurture ideas across a range of platforms.

The minority investment in AWA is the latest in Fremantle’s investment activity, which in 2022 saw the company take majority stakes in Eureka (Parental Guidance, Holey Moley), Label 1 (Five Dates a Week, Hospital), Element Pictures (Normal People, The Wonder, Conversations With Friends), Dancing Ledge Productions (The Salisbury Poisonings, The Responder), Lux Vide (Devils, Medici) 72 Films (9/11: One Day in America, All or Nothing: Arsenal), Wildstar Films (America the Beautiful, America’s National Parks), Silvio Productions (Buried, The Baby Daddy) and a minority stake in Fabel Entertainment (Bosch).