The live-action French remake of Tsukasa Hojo’s “Cat’s Eyes” manga captured 46% of France’s 15-to-24 audience on TF1 – a figure its distributor described as “totally unexpected” – before selling into more than 50 territories and landing on Hulu in the U.S.
Rodolphe Buet, chief distribution officer of StudioTF1, a wholly owned subsidiary of TF1 Group, laid out how the series got made, how it found its audience and what the team intends to do differently in season 2 at a Cannes Film Market panel this week. The session arrived as the market’s inaugural Japan IP Market – a three-day event co-organized with TIFFCOM as part of Japan’s Country of Honor designation – underscored the global appetite for exactly the kind of Franco-Japanese creative partnership that gave “Cat’s Eyes” its origins.
Set in contemporary Paris, “Cat’s Eyes” follows three sisters – Tamara (Camille Lou), Sylia (Constance Labbé) and Alexia (Claire Romain) – who reunite to steal back a work of art tied to their father’s decade-old disappearance, while evading police captain Quentin Chapuis (MB14), who carries an unresolved romantic history with one of the trio. The eight-episode series, produced and directed by Alexandre Laurent, was made at a budget of more than €20 million ($23 million).
