Dargaud Media is a French production company and animation studio that produces animation, documentaries and feature-length films. It was created in 1984 by the French-Belgian comic book publishing house Dargaud. It is one of the production labels of Ellipse Animation of the Média-Participations group.
In 1967, Dargaud entered the animation production services with the movie Asterix the Gaul. Subsequently, the company produced or co-produced several Asterix, Lucky Luke and Tintin feature films.
By 1972, Dargaud announced that they've teamed up with American production and distributor United Artists to produce the movie Le Viager which was directed by Pierre Tchernia. Two years later in 1974, Dargaud announced that they had joined forces with René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo.
In June 1997, Dargaud announced that they've acquired French animation and production company Marina Productions which was founded by Claude Berthier expanding Dargaud's animation output with Marina Producitons being placed under Dargaud Films thrus becoming Dargaud's own animation subsidiary[1] One year later in June 1998 following Dargaud's acquisition of Marina Productions, Dargaud expanded their animation and productions operations by acquiring a majority interest in French production company Millésime Productions which was headed by Gaspard de Chavagnac with Dargaud combining Marina and Millésime's functions into one group with Gaspard de Chavagnac heading Dargaud's two production companies.[2] The following year at the start of 1999, Dargaud Film announced that they have merged their own animation production companies Marina Productions and Millésime Productions into one entity animation production division named Dargaud Marina with the merged group will handle their projects annually.[3][4][5]
In July 2003 three years after Dargaud merged their animation and drama production outputs, Dargaud Marina expanded their animation production activities by their parent company Dargaud along with their owner Média-Participations as their parent company had acquired French animation production studio Ellipsanime from Canal+ owned production outfit StudioExpand, thrus giving Dargaud another production animation studio and assuming all ownership of Ellipsanime's production activities with Ellipsanime's animated production portfolio joining Dargaud's own production portfolio, marking Dargaud Marina becoming the largest animation production division of France.[6][7]
On January 31, 2007, Dargaud Marina's parent company Dargaud announced that they've rebranded their international distribution division Dargaud Distribution to Mediatoon Distribution following Media Participations's launch of Mediatoon.[8]
