Fortiche Production SAS is a French animation studio headquartered in Paris. It is known for the hit television series Arcane.

Fortiche Production SAS
Company typePrivate
IndustryAnimation
FoundedJune 3, 2009; 15 years ago (2009-06-03)
Founders
  • Pascal Charrue
  • Jérôme Combe
  • Arnaud Delord
Headquarters,
France
Number of locations
3
Products
Revenue16,261,500 Euro (2020) Edit this on Wikidata
Number of employees
350 (2022)
Websiteforticheprod.com Edit this at Wikidata

Development

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Fortiche Production SAS was founded in 2009 and initially created commercials for Coca-Cola, Honda, Samsung, Panasonic and MTV. From the start, a combination of 2D and 3D animation has defined the studio's style, the "Touche Fortiche".[1]

They moved on to creating music videos for Freak Kitchen, Gorillaz and LIMOUSINE. These projects caught the attention of video game studios such as Ubisoft, Volition Studios, Carbine Studios and Riot Games.[2] For the latter, Fortiche produced game trailers in the form of short films along with music videos, most notably Pop/Stars.[3]

They eventually moved on to the production of the series Rabbids Invasion, which it co-produced from 2013 to 2019 for Netflix and Nickelodeon in partnership with Ubisoft.[citation needed]

In 2015, the French channel France 2 broadcast the 55-minute historical documentary film Le dernier Gaulois about the Gallic Wars animated by Fortiche. Motion Capture technology was used for this.[4]

At the 2017 industry fair Cartoon Movie in Bordeaux, the studio pitched the feature film project Miss Saturne with a pilot short film.[5]

Arcane

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In November 2021, Fortiche, in collaboration with Riot Games, released the series Arcane set in the League of Legends-universe on the streaming platforms Netflix and in China on Tencent Video. It was the world's most-watched series on Netflix for two weeks in November 2021 and was extremely well received by critics.[6][7]

During the six year creation of Arcane, staff numbers grew from around 15 to around 300.[8] The studio expanded in 2020 with branches in Montpellier and Las Palmas. The studio's revenue rose to 16.4 million for 2021.[9] Le Figaro reported that the budget of Arcane was 60–80 million.[10] In November 2021 Riot-Games-CEO Nicolo Laurent announced via Twitter that a second season was commissioned from Fortiche.[11] The second and final season premiered on November 9, 2024 and concluded on November 23.

On March 14, 2022, Riot Games announced a new equity investment in Fortiche Production.[12] Under the terms of the investment, Riot now holds a significant non-controlling stake in Fortiche. Brian Wright (Chief Content Officer at Riot) and Brendan Mulligan (Director of Corporate Development at Riot) have also joined Fortiche's board of directors.[13]

Filmography

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Film

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  • Penelope of Sparta (in production)[14]

Television series

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Music videos

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Films

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  • Le dernier Gaulois (2015) – TV Movie[4]

References

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  1. ^ "All about". Fortiche Production. Retrieved 2023-02-27.
  2. ^ "Les Français de Fortiche bousculent l'animation avec « Arcane »" [The French from Fortiche are shaking up animation with “Arcane”]. Le Monde (in French). 2021-11-04. Retrieved 2023-02-27.
  3. ^ "Interview avec Arnaud Delord, co-fondateur de Fortiche et réalisateur sur la série Arcane" [Interview with Arnaud Delord, co-founder of Fortiche and director on the Arcane series]. Breakflip (in French). 7 November 2021. Retrieved 2023-02-27.
  4. ^ a b "Des Gaulois comme on ne les a jamais vus sur France 2" [Gauls as we have never seen them on France 2]. Telerama (in French). 2015-12-29. Retrieved 2023-02-27.
  5. ^ "About". Cartoon Movie. Retrieved 2023-02-27.
  6. ^ "Netflix Top 10 - Global". Netflix. Retrieved 2023-02-27.
  7. ^ "Arcane: League of Legends", Rotten Tomatoes, retrieved 2023-02-27
  8. ^ Wit, Alex Dudok de (2022-01-05). "The Secret To 'Arcane' Studio Fortiche's Success: It's Owned By Artists". Cartoon Brew. Retrieved 2023-02-27.
  9. ^ Lesniak, Isabelle (2021-11-18). "Fortiche, le nouveau roi français de l'animation" [Fortiche, the new French king of animation]. Les Echos (in French). Retrieved 2023-02-27.
  10. ^ Kerkour, Tom (2021-12-10). "Arcane: un petit studio français derrière la série d'animation la plus chère du monde" [Arcane: a small French studio behind the most expensive animation series in the world]. Le Figaro (in French). Retrieved 2023-02-27.
  11. ^ Nicolo Laurent [@niiicolo] (20 November 2021). "So yeah, we are working on #arcane season 2. The good news: you won't have to wait for 6 years (the time it took us to making season 1) The bad news: it's not coming in 2022 😢" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  12. ^ Stubbs, Mike. "Riot Games Invests In 'Arcane' Animation Studio Fortiche Production". Forbes. Retrieved 2024-04-26.
  13. ^ "Riot Games Announces New Equity Investment in "Arcane" Animation Studio Fortiche Production". Riot Games. 14 March 2022.
  14. ^ Lang, Jamie (10 June 2024). "'Arcane' Animation Studio Fortiche Production Preps Sci-Fi Feature 'Penelope of Sparta,' Inspired by Greek Mythology (Exclusive)". Variety. Retrieved 11 June 2024.
  15. ^ "Arcane was inspired by these anime that only 90s kids know | ONE Esports". www.oneesports.gg. 2024-03-27. Retrieved 2024-04-26.
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