Madman Entertainment

• 1. Introduction

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  Madman Entertainment began not with a film studio, not with a cinema, but with a mail-order catalogue. In 1996, two Australians named Tim Anderson and Paul Wiegard started shipping imported anime titles to customers around the country. At the time, anime was a niche passion in Australia, and the pair were inspired by what Manga Entertainment had already built in the United States and the United Kingdom. What followed was not a straight line to success. It was a series of pivots, partnerships, acquisitions, sales, and reunions that would take the company from VHS tapes to streaming services, from a two-person operation to a business with labels spanning sports, comedy, Bollywood, children's entertainment, and documentary film. The question the rest of this documentary explores is how a mail-order anime shop becomes one of Australia's most diverse entertainment companies.

• 2. From VHS to DVD

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  Ghost in the Shell, the 1995 Japanese animated film, holds a specific place in Madman's story. It was Madman's first DVD release, and it marked the moment the company became the second Australian distributor to author DVDs in-house. That was a technical threshold. Getting to it meant moving beyond simply selling VHS cassettes of foreign titles and building real authoring capability. By 1998, Madman had expanded further, moving anime from the mail-order catalogue onto broadcast television. Neon Genesis Evangelion aired on SBS TV, giving the company a presence in Australian living rooms it had never had before. These early moves established a pattern that would define Madman for years: spot a format or channel before the mainstream reaches it, and move fast.

• 3. Labels, Licences, and Reach

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  Madman grew its catalogue by building a system of distinct labels rather than one undifferentiated brand. Live-action titles travelled through Madman Films, Directors Suite, Madman Sports, Madman Laughs, Madman Television, Bollywood Masala, and Eastern Eye. Children's programming moved under Planet Mad and Mad4Kids. Theatrical releases went through Madman Cinema. Each label addressed a different audience, and together they allowed the company to hold a wide range of rights without competing against itself. The company also took on distribution work for Australia's Special Broadcasting Service, and later for WWE titles across Australasia, replacing Shock Entertainment in that role. Until 2005, Madman also distributed Umbrella Entertainment's film catalogue. A 2007 licensing agreement with Cartoon Network brought original Cartoon Network and Adult Swim series onto DVD in Australia and the United States. Madman even programmed Adult Swim's anime block in both countries, a relationship that ended on the 1st of January 2008 when Cartoon Network Australia dropped its entire Adult Swim lineup.

• 4. The Funtastic Years

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  On the 1st of May 2006, Funtastic Limited bought the Madman Group. The logic was specific: Funtastic held toy rights to certain properties and wanted the corresponding media rights. Tim Anderson and Paul Wiegard both signed employment agreements as part of the deal and stayed on the board of directors. During this period, Madman kept expanding. On the 23rd of February 2008, the company announced a distribution deal with Viz Media to handle Viz's manga titles in Australia and the United States. That deal would run until April 2016, when Simon and Schuster took over distribution and Madman stepped away from manga entirely. At the 2008 Supanova Pop Culture Expo, Madman unveiled the Madman Screening Room, a video on demand streaming service, with School Rumble as its first title. Blu-ray arrived in June 2009, with The Transformers: The Movie as the first release. Also in 2009, Madman produced an English adaptation of Tamagotchi: The Movie, a 2007 film built around Bandai and WiZ's digital pet franchise. A planned dub of the sequel, Tamagotchi: Happiest Story in the Universe!, was later cancelled. By April 2008, Madman had also announced a collaboration with British company Warp Films, with plans to make at least two films together over three years, beginning with Tyrannosaur. The Funtastic period was productive, but it would not last. By March 2014, Funtastic announced it intended to sell Madman, citing a market value that had fallen to roughly half the asset's carrying value.

• 5. Founders Return

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  On the 31st of July 2014, Tim Anderson and Paul Wiegard bought the company back. They were joined by a small group of investors, and Madman became an independent company again. The founders had stayed on through the Funtastic era under employment agreements. Now they owned the business outright. That independence opened new moves. In April 2017, Madman Media Group bought Garage Entertainment from SurfStitch Group for what the company described as a nominal cash consideration. The acquisition brought in Garage Entertainment Pty. Ltd. and TMG Media Pty. Ltd., and came with an agreement to negotiate a strategic partnership with SurfStitch covering content development and advertising services. Then the anime side of the business took a turn of its own. On the 15th of November 2017, Aniplex, a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment Japan, became a minority shareholder in Madman Anime Group. On the 6th of February 2019, Madman sold Madman Anime to Aniplex outright. The price was not disclosed publicly, but the sale separated the anime operation from the rest of the company entirely.

• 6. Film Partnerships and Legal Friction

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  On the 13th of February 2020, Madman Entertainment joined Curzon and Cineart in launching a film development fund designed to run for three years. The partnership gave each company first-look options on distribution, and was expected to back sixteen projects in total. The fund, called the Curzon CM Development Fund, operated from Curzon's London offices. Its first slate of projects included Swimming Home, Sweet Maddie Stone, and The Ballad of a Small Player. Three years later, a different kind of partnership tension emerged. On the 11th of July 2023, APRA AMCOS filed a lawsuit against Madman's streaming services DocPlay and Garage Entertainment, claiming the two platforms had not paid for licences covering the use of music in their content. The proceedings settled quickly, with DocPlay and Garage becoming among the first streaming services to reach an agreement with APRA AMCOS for the ongoing payment of music fees. In 2024, the Australian branch of Manga Entertainment was folded into Madman Entertainment, completing a circle that had begun with the company's founding inspiration three decades earlier.

• 7. DocPlay and Documentary Streaming

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  DocPlay launched on the 1st of December 2016 as a subscription-only video-on-demand service dedicated entirely to documentaries. It opened with 130 titles, including 20 Australian productions. Two days before that launch date, on the 29th of November 2016, Madman announced it had received funding through Screen Australia's Enterprise program. That funding made DocPlay possible and allowed the platform to use a revenue-sharing model for documentary filmmakers, rather than a flat licensing fee. Screen Australia's support also specifically enabled DocPlay to acquire and stream Australian documentaries. On the 23rd of July 2019, DocPlay reached a content agreement with ABC Commercial, adding 180 hours of factual programming from the ABC's library. That content included locally produced work alongside titles from the United States and the United Kingdom, broadening the platform's reach well beyond its documentary-focused origins.