Summary
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In the world of TV and film studios, Fortiche is still a rather young venture. However, with the continuing success of their productions, the future looks bright for them to be a major creative force in the industry. But while we can talk about their success now, let’s dive back into their history to see where it all started.
Founding of Studio and Mission
The studio began its journey in 2009, when founders Jérôme Combe, Pascal Charrue and Arnaud Delord created Fortiche (which roughly translates to “Ace” or “Hotshot”). While they would found the studio in France, from the very beginning they had aspirations to turn Fortiche into a globally influential animation studio.
The goal with Fortiche from the very beginning was to achieve and set a new international standard for creativity in the field of animation. The steady improvement and refinement of their unique animation style has brought them to where they are today.
“At Fortiche, while we appreciate and are inspired by various productions, our goal is to carve out our own unique route and bring something original to the table.” - Pascal Charrue, one of the founders of Fortiche
Their First Major Projects
Arguably, the first projects that you could say showed the promise of their future would be animated music videos with projects like Freak of the Week/Freak Kitchen, and Gorillaz. It is through these ventures that their now famous style would begin to take clearer shape, and their unique potential was beginning to unfold.
Perhaps their biggest windfall was landing projects with Riot Games, with their first collaboration being forLeague of Legendscinematics, specifically for Jinx, who fittingly is now one of the main focuses of theirArcaneseries. These collaborations continued, with Fortiche eventually producing the hit music video for League of Legends in universe popstar group K/DA, before they landed the contract to produce the now wildly successful seriesArcane.
During that time, they also produced the Marvel series Rocket & Groot, among some other personal projects.
Landing Arcane
One of the main questions circling around Fortiche right now is, how did they landArcane? With Riot and parent company Tencent being multi-billion dollar corporations, they likely had their pick of animation studios to choose from. With games likeGenshin Impactand other Gachas choosing major studios like MAPPA to produce their animated forays into the IP, why did Riot choose Fortiche to collaborate with?
The story starts over 10 years ago, after Fortiche created a music video for the song, “La Gaviota”. Christian Linke, would-beArcaneshowrunner was enamored with Fortiche’s art direction and was inspired to continue working with them into the future. This would lead to their first collaboration with Riot, making the “Get Jinxed” cinematic for League of Legends. A decade later, with Fortiche producing the “Warriors” music video for League of Legends World Championship, among many other League features, their efforts eventually landed them in the right position for when Riot was ready to move forward with a TV series.
“Our turning point came when Christian Linke,Arcane’s showrunner, was captivated by the creative direction and overall aesthetic we developed in the “La Gaviota” music video.” - Fortiche founder Pascal Charrue in an interview with Crunchyroll.
What Does the Future Look Like for Fortiche?
With Riot’s extensive investment in Fortiche (Riot Games staff now sit on the board of directors for Fortiche, and Riot even owns a non-controlling stake in the company), we can expect to see many more stories from the universe of Runeterra in the coming years. With these investments, it looks like Fortiche is gearing up to handle these projects and many more. While creatingArcane, over a six-year period, the staff of Fortiche allegedly grew from 15 to now around 300, with that number likely continuing to increase. They have opened branch studios, with one opening in France, and another in Spain.
In terms of their own original IP and most likely their next release,Penelope of Spartais an original Sci-Fi coming of age story inspired by ancient Greek mythology. This will be the studio’s first full-length feature film and with the hype and success ofArcane, audiences should be excited for this and much more to come from Fortiche.
Arcane is now available to stream on Netflix.
Arcane
Arcane is an animated series developed by Alex Yee and Christian Linke that follows a the story of Piltover and Zaun, two pivotal locations in the League of Legends universe. The first season follows the stories of Jynx and Vi, as well as Jayce and Viktor.
