Alpha1Media launches Sovereign IP slate for global cinema at Cannes
Cannes, France (19 May 2025): Global media and entertainment film Alpha1Media on May 19 launched its disruptive Sovereign IP movie slate at the Cannes Film Festival, with all its film projects primarily designed for worldwide theatrical cinema release.
The UK-based company introduced the slate at the 78th edition of the world’s most famous film festival in France, featuring original film projects which include new IP (intellectual property) blockbuster franchises, such as global sci-fi technothriller, NANO, balanced with culturally-artistic films intended as Oscar-contenders.
“There is no better place to launch Alpha1Media’s Sovereign IP film slate than at the 78th Cannes, as we aim to harness the disruption in the global film industry,” said Talal Malik, Alpha1Media CEO and producer-writer in Cannes. “At the 75th Cannes, we had spoken about Cinema’s Next Quantum Leap and three years later, we are launching the slate which we believe best represents that.”
Talal Malik brings 25 years of diverse world-class experience to create the Sovereign IP slate, from helping found leading management consulting firm McKinsey’s Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) practice; to creating a contemporary, global and multi-culturally-representative IP, being educated in the footsteps of his fellow predecessor at Pembroke College, Oxford, ‘The Lord of the Rings’ author J. R. R. Tolkien, and trained as his fellow predecessor at Reuters under its prestigious flagship writing fellowship, ‘James Bond 007’ author Ian Fleming; to top-tier experience on global film franchises, such as James Bond and Harry Potter, and with globally-recognised auteurs such as the Wachowskis of ‘The Matrix’ franchise.
The Sovereign IP slate’s first major project is NANO, a global sci-fi technothriller, which revives, combines and then innovates upon the literary genres of the geopolitical thriller of Tom Clancy (‘Jack Ryan’) and the technothrillers of Michael Crichton (‘Jurassic Park’), a cinematic fusion of TIME and WIRED magazines, as part of the Technopolis franchise.
“NANO is an ambitious concept action franchise in the making and it is being presented at a time of major franchise maturity in the market,” said Jonathan Sadler, the UK-based global film marketing expert whose book ‘Film Marketing & Distribution: An Independent Filmmaker’s Guide’ is released on October 21, 2025.
“With the polarisation of cinema towards big screen event movies, Hollywood desperately needs new heroes, characters, stories and ideas: NANO is an exceptionally well thought out action franchise in the making … and in the age-old mould of movies like ‘The Rock’, ‘Top Gun’ and Bond, and these sorts of films are highly scarce these days.”
The Sovereign IP slate aims to be supported not only by global private equity investment but more so anchored by sovereign-backed investment, such as sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and specialised funds, thereby earning its name.
“Sovereign IP allows for sovereigns entities to support these feature film projects through conventional means such as tax incentives and rebates as well as hard infrastructure such as locations, facilities and studios,” said Talal Malik.
“But more than that, it helps them convert Sovereign IP into Cornerstone IP, as they can simultaneously not only invest in a global socio-economic asset which induces film tourism, boosts the industry’s ecosystem and diversifies GDP but also invests in a global long-term cultural cornerstone asset which helps authentically, intrinsically and narratively portray their country, culture and people.”
Alpha1Media has worked with or been recognised by some of the world’s most influential people and companies in the global film sector over the past quarter of a century.
Credited Partners for projects such as ‘NANO’ on the Sovereign IP include Largo A.I., the Swiss A.I. company which partners as part of Cannes Next, and in February 2025, received direct investment as a company from Hollywood icon, Sylvester Stallone.
“We have a very big budget here,” said Sami Arpa, CEO of Largo AI, speaking publicly about the company’s milestone A.I. analysis of ‘NANO’ as a film project. “We have strong sci-fi, thriller and action (genre) patterns, and actually this pattern – once I look at that it – reminds me of ‘Interstellar’, which we have very similar patterns with … and (also) this corresponds to a 324 per cent return on investment (ROI) on the budget.”
‘Interstellar’ is a 2014 original epic sci-fi film directed and co-written by Hollywood mega-auteur Christopher Nolan, which ranks 8.7 out of 10 on IMDB.com and was produced on a budget of $165 million made $758.6 million.
The 78th Festival De Cannes in May 2025 has featured Hollywood icons of each generation such as Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, with Tom Cruise launching the World Premiere of ‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’, seen as a culmination of a 30-year story of the franchise.
“It is a pleasure to be at Cannes this year, celebrating Tom Cruise’s global success over the past three decades with the ‘Mission: Impossible’ franchise,” said Talal Malik. “It is even more special having personally been at its start, attending the inaugural ‘Mission: Impossible’ in London in 1996 and then, at the franchise’s critical long-term inflection point, attending the World Premiere of ‘Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol’ in Dubai, in 2011.”
To demonstrate global thought leadership in the film industry at this disruptive time, Talal Malik published his exclusive perspective on Cinema’s Next Quantum Leap in the UK’s prestigious ‘The Independent’ newspaper as part of the 75th edition of Cannes in 2022 and during the World Premiere of Hollywood icon Tom Cruise’s ‘Top Gun: Maverick’, which subsequently became a billion-dollar blockbuster.
Alpha1Media (Media. ENHANCED) is a global media and entertainment firm. Alpha1Media produces and advises on media creation using 10×10 types of media including phone, print, TV, radio, billboard, computer, cinema and futuristic media based on scale, motion and holograms. In the film sector, Alpha1Media focuses on film development, production, financing and cultural advisory services.