Former Mediawan Producer Charlotte Toledano Detaille Launches Alyx Films, Teams With ‘Book Club’ Creator Geronimo on…

Charlotte Toledano Detaille, the former Mediawan producer behind Prime Video’s streaming hit “Escort Boys,” is launching Alyx Films, an independent banner that will kick off with an ambitious slate built around breakout French digital creator Geronimo.

The company, which is based in Paris and in the South of France, has signed an exclusive partnership with Geronimo, whose viral series “The Book Club” has generated more than 35 million views and whose work has reached 450 million people across platforms. Together, Alyx Films and Geronimo are co-producing his first short film and feature, while also developing a hybrid talk show for an SVOD platform.

The partnership reflects Toledano Detaille’s broader ambition for Alyx Films: to build premium fiction, international formats and projects mixing traditional and digital culture.

Toledano Detaille brings more than two decades of experience across the French and international TV business, having held senior roles at Endemol, Banijay, Newen, Studio TF1 and Lagardère Studios – where she was an associate producer on Netflix France’s first original documentary series, “Grégory.” In 2021, she co-founded Story Nation within Mediawan, where she produced both fiction and documentary projects. Alongside “Escort Boys,” she also brought the U.S. format “Hot Ones” to France, where it has run for four seasons on Canal+ and YouTube. After years inside France’s biggest media companies, she says launching her own independent company felt like the natural next step because it will allow her to “own and control the IPs of the shows (she produces).”

“The industry is shifting very fast, and I believe independent structures are better equipped to adapt to new formats, new talents and new ways of producing,” she tells Variety. “Freedom, agility and human connection are key to work with the new generation of creators and talents. And I believe that this is exactly what you get when you become independent.”

Speaking of her drive to work with creators, she says she feels inspired by “their freedom and boldness,” as well as their “strong connection to their audience.” “They have a real-time understanding of their audience that traditional systems don’t have. They test, fail, adjust and succeed much faster than we do in film and TV.” She adds that digital creators are also particularly savvy and often know how to “produce, write, act, direct and edit themselves.”

For Toledano Detaille, Geronimo stood out not only because of his online reach, but was “already thinking like a filmmaker, not just a content creator.”

“Coming from the development side and the international format business, I always tried to find what I call high concepts and IPs with international potential. It is exactly what I felt that I found when I discovered Geronimo’s work,” she says.

Detaille argues that the next wave of premium storytelling could come from pairing online-native creators with experienced film and television writers, producers and executives. She points to the growing number of digital creators making the leap into long-form, citing the low-budget horror smash hit “Obsession,” written and directed by YouTube creators, as well as the French phenomenon “Kaizen,” from YouTube creator Inoxtag which had a successful run in local theaters.

“This shows us that online creators are ready for successful long-form storytelling and that investors and commissioners should look closer at them than ever,” she says.

Alyx Films is also developing adaptations of international scripted and unscripted IP, including negotiations to adapt another Israeli series for the French market, building on Toledano Detaille’s experience on “Escort Boys.” The Prime Video series, written and directed by Ruben Alves, ran for two seasons and became one of the most high-profile French streaming comedies in recent years.