Reese Witherspoon Buys Back Hello Sunshine From Candle Media
Reese Witherspoon is buying back Hello Sunshine, the production company she founded, from Candle Media. She is doing it in partnership with Mediawan. Variety reported the agreement on 13 October 2026.
Witherspoon said she is investing alongside Mediawan and joining Pierre-Antoine Capton and his teams. Capton leads Mediawan. Co-founder Seth Rodsky will join the Hello Sunshine board alongside Witherspoon and Mediawan representatives.
In a statement, Witherspoon said Mediawan had built a global, independent studio by putting creators first. That phrase means a production group not owned by a larger broadcaster or tech platform, working with writers, directors and actors to develop shows and films. She also thanked Peter Chernin and Jesse Jacobs for believing in Hello Sunshine from day one, and expressed gratitude to Blackstone and Candle Media for their partnership and support.
The sale closes a five-year chapter. Candle Media acquired Hello Sunshine in a deal that valued the company at nearly $1 billion. Candle Media itself was started in 2021, according to Bloomberg, by a Blackstone-backed group led by former Disney executives including Kevin Mayer, the Wall Street Journal reported at the time.
That ownership was later reviewed. In March 2025, Blackstone and Candle Media executives considered options for Hello Sunshine that would give it greater scope and scale, such as combining it with another company, Reuters reported, citing sources.
Mediawan arrives as an expanding buyer. It has recently acquired Chernin Entertainment, Brad Pitt’s Plan B and See-Saw Films. Its other production labels — meaning individual production companies that operate under the larger group — include Kinetic Content, Wiedemann & Berg, Palomar, Our Films, Drama Republic, Chapter2 and Chi-Fou-Mi.
For viewers, this matters because ownership decides what gets made next. A change at the top affects the writers’ rooms, crews and development slates behind future series and films. Hello Sunshine now returns to its founder, with a new partner attached.
