Thomas Benski Aims to Launch Lumina Media as a Home for Global Talent

Thomas Benski, the French-Brazilian entrepreneur, has been on the go in the past week, speaking with Deadline. First, he attended a VC conference on gaming in Paris. He then went to London, where his next-generation company, Lumina Media, has an office, before returning to his hometown of New York City. This […]

Franco-Brazilian entrepreneur Thomas Bensky has been really busy in the week leading up to speaking with Deadline. First, he was in Paris for a VC conference on gaming. He then moved to London, where his next generation company Lumina Media is based, before returning to his native New York City.

The packed schedule is a small window into how Bensky lives and works after leaving Pulse Films to produce Gangs of London in 2022. He has a laser focus on finding the next iteration of media and entertainment, whether it's in gaming, consumer brands, the creative economy, film and television, or technology. Those "catalysts," as Bensky calls them, can be anywhere. His company participates in about 75 products a year, but Bensky is tight-lipped about where they originate. Related News The producers of "Gangs of London" claim that they are owed $20 million from the sales of Pulse films.

"I'm more interested in meeting different people and seeing different things than just being in the same circuit," says the self-described "outsider" who has built a reputation in the industry for going against the grain. Watch on Deadline

Pulse, which he formed with Marissa Clifford in 2005 before selling to Vice Media in 2016, was certainly a curiosity for a certain generation of British producers. Some of the more traditional world tried to understand a TV and film production company that began life as a music video producer and doubled as an advertising maker and directorial talent house. But these days, a multi-pronged approach seems to be the only way to survive. Lumina also follows these principles.

Bensky and Clifford are currently in a dispute with Vice over payments related to Pulse sales. You can read about it here. However, this is unlikely to derail Bensky's plans for his new venture.

Lumina was formed two years ago with offices on both sides of the Atlantic and in the Middle East and a business model spanning verticals in talent and IP, innovation, creative economy and youth sports.

Early investments came from Omar Sy and Louis Leterrier to launch Carousel Studios, as well as Wayward '71 director and Strike producer Jamie Johnson. Clifford and his long-time business partners David Corbacion lead the multi-discipline production business Magna Studios, the entity closest to Pulse in the group, while last year it also acquired a stake in Benedict Cumberbatch's SunnyMarch Productions. Other investments have included companies such as artificial intelligence firm Perplexity and game biz Creators Corp.

A fifth strategic focus is the venture capital arm, which has invested in consumer brands such as swimwear company Hunza G and luxury handbag business Métier. "What ties it all together is the idea of ​​talent and IP as Stebensky's catalyst," he says. "You can apply it to a consumer brand, to a film and television studio."

His thesis arose from the post-pulse realization that he was a "builder", not an investor. Initially expecting that he would simply invest in other people's businesses, he developed an idea for a creator-led operation that would be "just another studio and not just another production company", but "a proper media company for today". In fact, an alternative to the Hollywood model, based out of Europe.

Bensky had seen that technology was rapidly changing the media business and began looking for IP and talent, both of which he describes as "very scarce" at the time. "We were moving away from the golden age of streaming, where there was so much demand," he recalls.

The Lumina model appealed to the likes of Tetra Pak giant Magnus Raussing's BFK, film producer Charles Dorfman's Dorfman Media Holding and SVS Holding, the company founded by producers Marie Savar and PJ van Sandwijk, who have all invested in the company.

Bensky's own investment vehicle, TBI, has been a major shareholder since day one. "I believe that in order to have more independence, to be able to reduce the noise, you have to put your money somewhere," Bensky says of risking his capital.

The model attracted Lupine star Sy, who said at the launch of Carrousel in 2024: "Lumina and Thomas bring not only capital, but a strategic and operational approach that gives artists like us the resources and expertise to go out and realize our ambitions." According to Sy, this "came at a time when talent is often not at the table to benefit the long-term success of the project."

In September 2025, Lumina invested a seven-figure sum in Arcade, the UK-based producer management company that oversees The Sidemen. Jordan Schwarzenberger, a creative economist who co-founded Arcade, is effusive in his praise of Bensky's vision.

"I'd say Thomas and Lumina have been the single most transformative thing that's happened to our business," he says. "What Thomas specifically gave us was rigor and structure, and the confidence to pursue a purpose-built business with a creative core, without becoming too rigid and corporate, and away from who we really are."

In total, Lumina has invested in 15 companies with combined annual revenue of more than $100 million. The concept that Bensky sold them on was based on the same word: "catalyst."

"That's what Lumina is all about," says Bensky. We find exceptional cultural catalysts. They can be talent, like Omar Sy or Benedict Cumberbatch, they can be audience-driven talent, like Arcade and The Sidemen and the community around them, or they can be a brand.

We see the ecosystem in a very broad way, not just as a product of film and television production. I am just one piece.

Instead of starting as one big group, we started with catalysts and built businesses around them. We fund, strategize and build the infrastructure to turn that cultural momentum into proprietary IP, long-term organizational value and ultimately direct audience engagement. The main thing is that I want to build the operating system of talent and IP."

Focusing on talent over fixation has been a key factor in Lumina's life cycle, according to Bensky. "It's a very big north star," he says. "It's a more modern media group that bets on storytelling, creativity, ownership and audience rather than scale. We feel that might have been relevant a decade ago, but today, with the way the ecosystem is evolving, we're very optimistic about our approach."

Deadline wonders what, then, he would make of industry-changing mergers like Banijay and All3Media, which will be at MIPCOM this year as a united front (called Banijay Entertainment) for the first time since their $8 billion merger.

"I think it works when you're already there, but I'm not sure it makes sense to build another big portfolio from scratch," he says, adding that high-profile M&A is more of an option for established players but less so for emerging businesses. "Both truths can happen," he adds.

Bensky has watched Paramount's $110 billion pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery, and he praises David Ellison's highly controversial commitment to release 30 movies a year. "I can understand the logic of that, and I think there's an incentive to do it," he says. I'm curious to see how they work.

Bensky says that if there is future integration for Lumina, it will most likely be in the maker economy space, though it doesn't make sense for him to look at it now. "We have the resources of a private equity firm, but without any restrictions," says Bensky. "We're trying to take advantage of that and actually be an alternative to that very established location."

In the company's first 12 months, the focus was on showcasing the model to talent and consumers. "We've proven that," he says, adding that Lumina has been "cash flow positive" since day one and profitable since its second year.

In addition to getting into the black, the second year has been about "establishing a real business underneath," he adds. Essentially, this means allowing its ventures to scale: Arcade has recently evolved from its management roots into a fuller entertainment operation, while Cumberbatch's SunnyMarch has been encouraged to lean into its Letters Live events. These attract large audiences, who listen to the likes of Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley and even Queen Camilla read aloud from remarkable letters.

"It's absolutely incredible," says Bensky. "It's a natural evolution or extension of that business because it's a community that Benedict, Adam [Auckland] and Leah [Clarke] nurture. It sells out the Royal Albert Hall and the Royal Festival Hall. So, yes, SunnyMarch as a cultural catalyst can do film and TV, but why can't it have a real space in the real IPstan?"

The willingness to scrutinize his "thesis," as Bensky often calls his business model, is remarkable in an industry where CEOs routinely offer journalists black-and-white certainty. Indeed, Bensky has never been one to do things the traditional way.

By his own assessment, the BAFTA- and Grammy-nominated producer with credits for Gangs of London, Pig and No Distance Left to Run has "always existed outside the system." He has previously spoken about attending Goldsmiths, a renowned arts and culture college in London, where some of his ideas about creativity crystallized, and how his unusual upbringing fueled his relentless ambition to play by his own set of rules.

After moving to London at the age of 17 from his home in Milan, Italy, Bensky had to learn the hobby on the job, initially driving camera trucks and working in art departments. Eight years later, at the age of 25, he and Clifford founded Pulse, which quickly gained a reputation as a hipster music video producer before branching out into commercials, film and television.

Bensky says: I got into this business when I was very young. "I don't come from a business or development background. At first, I wasn't impressed with being part of the system, and now I feel blessed to be able to just make my own path."

Filmmaking is "still something that fascinates him," he says, adding that "more than ever, we're in a moment where storytelling is a very valuable skill. I know it's sometimes seen as a culturally elitist thing, but I really mean it. Storytelling is the difference between a company and a brand.

Lumina companies have produced a smart set of products. Magna Studios produced Disney+'s Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger, from Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, and an AR/VR project for Apple and Real Madrid. "I'm proud of what they've accomplished in two years," Bensky said. "Achieving this scale is heartbreaking."

Demange directed the family thriller Lineage, starring Isabelle Huppert, Danny Bensala, Adam Bessa and Rae, which premiered at Cannes this year. Carrousel is co-producing the fourth season of Lupine on Netflix, and Sy and Strike are working on Senegal's first microdrama. They are currently in talks with "a major partner" to expand it across the African continent.

Lumina Studios, Bensky's own production arm, is a partner in Guy Ritchie's upcoming Jason Statham-starrer Viva La Madness. "I can't wait for it," he says. "That's really good."

Bensky reveals that he and Statham are working together to develop projects, though he won't say much more than that: "Statham is absolutely a generational talent in his prime and he's doing really well, but what I've done is really help him get more projects. We're building a pipeline of film and TV projects that we can own more of."

According to Bensky, who lists Stanley Kubrick's Apocalypse Now and Matthew Kasowitz's Lahaine as his favorite films and The Sopranos as his top TV show, the industry has been "shy" about applying his storytelling skills to other businesses.

"For me, the liberation of Lumina is the fact that I can do it now," he says. “I can go and invest in a consumer company and bring that storytelling rigor, content creation knowledge, talent understanding, and value chain understanding.

I'm surprised there isn't more. I'm sure if I had different partners, if I'd said, "One of the big investments we're going to make is Hunza G, a women's swimwear brand," I'd be fired. But I think there is logic in it and we stand by it."

As for the future, Bensky is working on "a few big projects that we hope will come off the line," more hiring and growth in the Middle East. "We're in it a lot," he says. What is clear is that you never know where he and Lumina will show up.