‘Geek Girl’ Co-Producer Aircraft Pictures Buys Back Stake From Canada’s Corus

The owners of Geek Girl co-producer Aircraft Pictures have bought back their shares from troubled Canadian media outfit Corus Entertainment.

For an undisclosed fee, Anthony Leo and Andrew Rosen have returned themselves via binding agreement as sole shareholders of the company, coming more than two years after Corus took a majority stake.

Aircraft is an Oscar and Emmy-nominated film and TV-maker with credits including animated movie The Breadwinner, which was EP’d by Angelina Jolie, Apple TV+’s Circuit Breakers and long-running Canadian series Holly Hobbie.

The 20-year-old company most recently co-produced Netflix and Corus’ StackTV’s Geek Girl adaptation with Nelvana and RubyRock. The series has rocketed into Netflix top-10s around the world.

“Our team at Aircraft Pictures has been truly fortunate to work with our colleagues at Corus over the past two and half years,” said Leo. “This partnership has allowed Aircraft to take advantage of additional resources and opportunities that have helped position the company for growth as we head into our 20th year in business.”

Corus Co-CEO Troy Reeb added: “It has been a pleasure working alongside Andrew and Anthony as Corus has long been a champion of Aircraft Pictures’ exceptional storytelling. As we continue to refine Corus’ content business, we look forward to seeing their ongoing growth in the global marketplace and wish them well on their next chapter.”

The news comes after Corus, which houses brands like Global News and YTV, said last month it would be reducing its full-time workforce by 25%, amounting to around 800 roles. It is also cost cutting and shuttering parts of the business due to what it termed the “challenging advertising environment. That announcement came after several senior exits out of Corus’ content division.