Guillaume Canet tells on the show Beau Geste, facing Pierre Lescure, how he was recruited to make Asterix and Obelix: The Middle Kingdom.
“You had to have won a César, to have made more than 2 million admissions, I believe, or 3 million admissions, to have made a film in English”, for Guillaume Canet, to become the director of one of the films the most anticipated of the year, Asterix and Obelix: The Middle Kingdomwas not easy, as he explains in Pierre Lescure’s program, Nice gesture.
Producer Yohan Baiada, obtained the rights for this story, explains Guillaume Canet “he developed this project in 20-30 pages with Hachette, and they won the competition for all projects”.
“And there was a casting of directors, once I was taken, once I was not taken”, he recalls.
To participate in this “casting” of directors, however, it was necessary to meet certain criteria, greatly restricting the number of eligible filmmakers.
“He killed the game”
“The fact of absolutely wanting to put Asterix and Obelix back at the heart of the story, that they really be the main characters of the film”, allowed him, according to him, to win the project. It was not easy to go after Depardieu, because he killed the game, but I wanted Obélix to have material to play to stick to the character of the comics and that he could embody this character and that ‘we believe in it’.
Asterix and Obelix: The Middle Kingdom is the first film not taken from one of the albums of the adventures of the two Gauls. The public will discover Guillaume Canet’s film on Wednesday February 1.
During the Parisian preview in the presence of the actors, the filmmaker said to himself “both very excited to see all the cast reunited, and at the same time very stressed because it is becoming extremely concrete”.
