Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith have reportedly offered a minority stake of their media firm, Westbrook, to former Disney executives Tom Staggs and Kevin Mayer.
Westbrook — which produces Netflix’s hit collection “Cobra Kai” and which backed “King Richard,” the biopic starring Will Smith as Richard Williams, the daddy of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams — had been in talks with Staggs and Mayer till the deal fell aside in October.
Sources advised Selection that Staggs and Mayer’s enterprise paid $60 million for a roughly 10% possession stake. The deal values the corporate at slightly below $600 million.
Mayer and Staggs are being financed by private-equity large Blackstone Group. Their media enterprise made headlines final 12 months when it bought Reese Witherspoon’s production company Hello Sunshine in a deal valued at $900 million and adopted that up with a $3 billion deal for Moonbug Leisure, the youngsters’s TV firm behind “CoComelon” and “Blippi.”
Westbrook Inc. is comprised of a manufacturing studio, Westbrook Studios, and a digital arm, Westbrook Media. Upcoming tasks for the corporate embody the motion movie “Emancipation,” which can seem on Apple TV+ and star Will Smith, in addition to the “Contemporary Prince” reboot “Bel-Air’ that can premiere subsequent month on Peacock.
