EuropaCorp

Main Logo Variations Trailer Variations

This article is about the French company. For the Brazilian company, see Europa Filmes. For the Swedish company, see Europa Film.

Credits

Descriptions by
EnormousRat and Dison

Captures by
Dison

Video captures courtesy of
bazarchives and Logo Archive

Background

EuropaCorp is a French movie studio founded by Luc Besson in 1992 as "Leeloo Productions". It was renamed to its current name in 2000 after Besson's old colleague, Pierre-Ange Le Pogam, joined the studio. The two separated in 2011 over creative differences. The company's output includes the Transporter, Taxi and Taken franchises and the Arthur film series.

In 2019, the company entered an indefinite hiatus after sexual allegations were made against Besson, and as a result, its American subsidiary filed for bankruptcy protection. In February 2020, EuropaCorp's shareholders (Besson's business firm Frontline, and Chinese film studio Fundamental Films, who acquired a 28% stake in the company in 2016) reached a financial agreement with Vine Alternative Investments, which saw Vine purchase 66% of the company with the two other shareholders remaining with 10% each.

EuropaCorp has released two films since, a spin-off to the Arthur film series called Arthur, malédiction, and Dogman, the first film released after Luc Besson cleared their sexual allegations.

1st Logo (placeholder logo) (2001)

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Visuals: Just the text "EUROPA présente" on a black background, depending on the trailer.

Technique: A still image.

Audio: The opening of the trailer.

Availability: Only seen on the trailers for Yamakasi and 15 août. It may have been a placeholder for the next logo.

2nd Logo (September 14, 2001-June 29, 2022)

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  Prototype version

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  Standard logo

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  Open matte

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  Arthur and the Invisibles (Game Boy Advance)

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  Taxi 3 (Game Boy Color)

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  Taxi 3 (Game Boy Advance)

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  Arthur and the Invisibles (Nintendo DS)

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  ARP Sélection combo variant

Visuals: Under a night sky with shimmering stars in the far, the camera moves above a water surface with some dolphins swimming around. A light blue ovoid rises from the water and unfolds into a winged woman, who floats and flaps her wings in the middle of the big word "EUROPA" in Trajan, which spreads out by the water as the woman appears. The small word "CORP." in Goudy Old Style fades in below. The body of water below them only reflects the woman.

Trivia: This logo homages the Greek myth of Europa, a sea nymph spirit.

Variants:

• An open-matte prototype version exists, in which a ring of wax candles also rises from the water, around the woman. As the sprinkles of water spread out, the candles are blown out.
• A shortened version is seen on trailers.
• On Arthur and the Invisibles for PS2, the logo is open matte.
  • The GBA version of Arthur and the Invisibles has a still of this variant with a copyright notice at the bottom.
• The official YouTube upload of the logo on the company's channel (simply titled "logo", dated 2007/03/26) has the above variant shortened to the last two seconds.
• On the GBC and GBA releases of Taxi 3, the logo is open matte and bit-crushed with a strong blue tint. The company name is also in one line and smaller than usual.
  • The NDS release of Arthur and the Invisibles has this variant cropped and untinted.
• On one film, the logo zooms out to the left with no sky background behind it, next to the ARP Sélection logo.

Technique: CGI directed by Laurent Lufroy at BUF Compagnie, who also animated the 2002 Paramount Pictures logo and the 2003 StudioCanal logo.

Audio: A calm soundtrack with some musical instrument inclusions. On some films, none or the opening theme of the movie.

Audio Variant: On Unleashed, the logo only has sound effects on it.

Availability:

• The logo was first seen on non-US trailers for Wasabi and debuted on the actual film itself.
• It has since been seen on every movie the studio produced, including the Taxi franchise (starting with Taxi 3), District 13, the Arthur film series, Lucy, Nine Lives and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.
• It also appeared on French theatrical prints of some foreign titles like Bangkok Dangerous (2000) and Thomas and the Magic Railroad.
• It also appeared on BUF Compagnie's website, and on video games based off the studio's films.
• Despite producing the Transporter franchise, this doesn't appear on international releases of The Transporter and Transporter 2, which replace it with the 20th Century Fox logo.

3rd Logo (July 10, 2023-)

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Visuals: It starts out with water being reflected on a gray background, as a light, which pans down from atop the screen, flashes, revealing a body of water under a clear blue sky, The company name, this time in one line and clear blue, fades in slowly as the background turns into nighttime as stars appear on the background. As this happens, some dolphins can be seen jumping on the water.

Technique: CGI.

Audio: A dreamy piece accompanied by a glockenspiel, with strings heard at the start.

Availability: So far, it only appeared on Dogman.