FILM OF THE WEEK
INTERVIEW | preview: Astérix aux Jeux Olympiques (Asterix at the Olympic Games) |
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| Written by Boyd van Hoeij | |
| Wednesday, 30 January 2008 | |
 A shot from 'Astérix aux Jeux Olympiques'. Photo (c): Pathé Distribution. Without a doubt one of the largest European roll-outs for a European film has started today with the French premiere of Astérix aux Jeux Olympiques (Asterix at the Olympic Games), the third live-action film in the Astérix series. Released on almost a fifth of all French screens today, the film directed by Thomas Langmann and Frédéric Forestier is one of the most expensive in French history with a production budget of €78 million and another €20 million just for its local marketing. The new Astérix has already been playing in Poland since February 25 and will also be released today in Belgium, Greece and Russia. Germany, Hungary, Slovakia, Finland, Norway, Latvia and the UK follow later this week, while people in Italy, Spain, Sweden and Iceland and the Netherlands will have to wait for an early February release. The franchise is of course based on the famous comic book series about the Gallic friends Astérix and Obélix who face the entire Roman Empire with good humour, created by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo in the 1960s. Their adventures have also been translated to the screen in several animated films, most recently in Astérix et les Vikings (Astérix and the Vikings). The two earlier live-action installments, Astérix et Obélix contre César from 1999 and Astérix et Obélix : Mission Cléopâtre from 2002 both had budgets under €50 million and garnered almost 9 and over 14 million French visitors respectively, while also doing well on TV and DVD both at home and in other European countries. Partly responsible for the enormous budget of Astérix aux Jeux Olympiques is the film's sumptuous production design by Aline Bonetto (Jean-Pierre Jeanet's Un long dimanche de fiançailles / A Very Long Engagement), with the centrepiece being a Roman stadium for the chiarot-racing sequences that was built on location in south-eastern Spain and measured 265 metres in length. Madeline Fontaine, who is also a regular on Jean-Pierre Jeunet's films, created the period costumes (that number over a thousand), while cinematography was handled by Thierry Arbogast, the regular director of photography of another French director who likes to think big: Luc Besson. Apart from Gérard Depardieu, who is back as the rotund Obélix, the cast is mainly composed of new faces, including a new Astérix: Clovis Cornillac (Les Brigades du Tigre / The Tiger Brigades) who takes over from Christian Clavier. French icon Alain Delon makes an appearance Julius Ceaser (or Jules César, as the French call him), while popular Belgian comedian Benoît Poelvoorde will play his scheming son Brutus. A host of contemporary sports stars have cameo appearances at the Olympic Games, including Michael Schumacher as a chariot-racer in a conspicuous red chariot and football star Zinedine Zidane as a man who discovers a precursor of football. The late Jean-Pierre Cassel, father of Vincent, has one of his last screen roles as the druid Panoramix. Related links: |
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