It appears Thomas Benski’s new venture Lumina Media has acquired a notable stake in Benedict Cumberbatch‘s production outfit SunnyMarch, according to documents filed in the U.K.
Cumberbatch launched SunnyMarch with friend and producer Adam Ackland in 2013 and they have since made a number of films and TV projects, including “The Thing with Feathers,” which stars Cumberbatch as a grieving father, and comedy-drama “The Electrical Life of Louis Wain,” also featuring the actor.
Documents filed at U.K. business registrar Companies House late last month show that Ackland, who previously owned more than 75% of SunnyMarch Group Limited, no longer has “significant control” of the company. He has been replaced by the Benski-controlled Lumina Studios Group, which now owns between 25% and 50% of the shares. Ackland remains the sole director of the company however.
Cumberbatch and Ackland have also both ceased to be significant owners of SunnyMarch Holdings Limited in favor of Sunnymarch Group Limited but they remain directors of the company alongside Anton CEO Sebastien Raybaud, to whom they sold a minority stake in 2021. Two charges Anton had registered against another subsidiary, SunnyMarch Limited, which is also owned by SunnyMarch Holdings, were paid off around the same time Lumina took on significant control of the company.
Cumberbatch recently set out his vision for SunnyMarch, saying it’s focused on “character-driven” films with budgets of between £9 million and £20 million, although he acknowledged it is “increasingly hard” to get movies with such small budgets made. “Our USP is to try to match quality with commerciality that understands the kind of films that we loved growing up watching,” he told Screen.
Lumina, which publicly launched this week and is backed by a number of investors including Magnus Rausing, Charles Dorfman and Philip Van Sandwijk, has already partnered with Omar Sy’s Carrousel Studios and Yann Demange’s Wayward Films.
Variety has contacted Lumina and SunnyMarch for comment.
