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\n\tFrench film stalwart Sara May is stepping into the action and genre space with the launch of her new production banner Sonderworld. The company, which has backing from Goodfellas, is currently developing a slate of elevated, globally-minded action and genre features with the goal of building original IP and franchises out of the French and European markets.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tA former TF1 and EuropaCorp exec, May previously spent six years at Netflix as Director of Content Acquisition EMEA. During her time there she was instrumental at getting hit French action thriller\u00a0Lost Bullet\u00a0<\/em>off the ground, which was groundbreaking for the genre in France.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tMay has been quietly building the new outfit and its slate since she stepped down from the streamer in 2024. Sonderworld has hired former Mars Film and EuropaCorp exec V\u00e9ronique Cuilhe (Taken<\/em>,\u00a0Hitman<\/em>) as General Manager while May serves as Founder\/President.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe company\u2019s pillar, May tells Deadline, will be on action titles and action heroes in France and Europe. \u201cI want to create a metaverse of action,\u201d she said. \u201cI want to show that we can do awesome action in France and Europe for the rest of the world at a fraction of the price. We have the talents, we have the infrastructure for that, and we certainly have the stories and the locations.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tGoodfellas has a first-look deal for international sales and co-productions on all Sonderworld projects. It is currently packaging six films, which are in development \u2013 two action, two elevated genre, one \u201curban\u201d and one dark comedy\/crime feature.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tWhile the focus will initially be on French-language productions, May admitted she is making room for English-language projects \u201cwhen the scope is big enough for the market.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tMay said that each project will look to partner with a co-producer in France or elsewhere in Europe, with the exec having a keen eye on UK producers specifically and feels there is scope for more cross-pollination between the two countries.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI feel like the borders are getting more and more blurry in terms of language,\u201d the Quebec-born exec said. \u201cAnd there are talents in the UK who would really work with the talents we have in France and vice-versa. In terms of production capacities, these are very dynamic markets that, if they work together properly, there\u2019s no reason we can\u2019t win on both sides by working side by side.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe strategy is to \u201cscale quickly\u201d across the next two years and build a volume of titles that can be \u201cimpactful on the market.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u00a0\u201cWhen you\u2019ve spent years on the buying and selling side \u2013 acquisitions, packaging, negotiating pre-sales \u2013 you develop a very precise understanding of why money moves, why a distributor says yes to one project and no to another and why a financier gets comfortable with risk structure. You internalize what bankability actually means and it has nothing to do with the quality of the script alone. It\u2019s about how the whole thing is assembled.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tShe continued: \u201cA lot of films fail \u2013 not because the story was bad \u2013 they fail because the producer wasn\u2019t thinking about risk, sales reality and investor psychology. That\u2019s the gap we close.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tMay added that she won\u2019t shy from using new tech, such as AI, in a creator-led and ethical way. \u201cOur approach is creator-first, always. The interest in AI, like any other technology, lies in hybridization and how to give filmmakers stronger, world-building tools, faster iteration and more creative options.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tMay was at the crossroads of the first real tectonic changes when Netflix arrived in Europe, starting at the company in 2018. She said the experience \u201cwas a masterclass in scale\u201d and during her six year-tenure, she was able to hone in \u201cvery quickly on what separates projects that travel globally from the ones that don\u2019t.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt\u2019s not often what people expect,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s less about the story being \u2018universal\u2019, in some abstract sense, and more about whether it has been packaged with the right talent, the right genre signals and the right market positioning from the start.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tShe continued: \u201cWhat struck me most, and which is why Sonderworld was created, is that there was an increasing gap between the new realities of the market and our industry and, more specifically, how producers operate in a model that is becoming increasingly obsolete with the realities of the market.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tMay will be in Cannes next month presenting projects to potential co-production partners.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n