How Japan IP Adaptation ‘Cat’s Eyes’ Cracked France’s Youth Audience – and What the Global Rollout Taught Its Makers

By Naman Ramachandran

Naman Ramachandran

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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.

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