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Asterix movie set for release

PARIS: It is the most expensive French film ever made, a live-action version of Asterix augmented by a cast of instantly recognisable Europeans, from Gerard Depardieu to Michael Schumacher.

But the comic characters, who fought off the Romans and brought glory to Gaul, may struggle to fulfil their latest assignment — winning over audiences across Europe, where the film, Asterix at the Olympic Games, hits cinemas this weekend.

The €78 million film has met with a sniffy response from French film critics, who are unsure that a lavish U.S.-style marketing campaign will compensate for its shortcomings. There was also uncertainty about the film’s intention to achieve cross-border popularity by appealing to audiences in several European countries,

“At the premiere, there were hundreds of people and not a single person laughed throughout the screening,” one critic said.

The film, directed by Thomas Langmann and Frederic Forestier, is the third screen adaptation of the comic book series. The second adaptation, Asterix and Cleopatra, released in 2002, was a French box office hit attracting more than 14 million viewers, but flopped abroad.

The directors have enlisted sports celebrities including Zinedine Zidane and European film stars such as Santiago Segura from Spain.

“We could either have aimed to target 60 million viewers in France alone, or 300 million potential viewers throughout Europe. I decided to go for the second option,” Mr. Langmann told Le Parisien.

Distributors have pumped more than €22 million into the campaign, which will see Asterix and Obelix popping up on trays and cups in McDonald’s and appearing on cereal boxes in European supermarkets. The film will be in 6,000 cinemas across the continent this week.

“In terms of the budget and the scale of the marketing campaign, I would say this is pretty unprecedented in France,” said a France-based journalist. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008

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