Asterix, Alain Chabat’s magic potion returns to TF1

It’s an audience figure the likes of which TV no longer knows, especially for a film. On February 17, 2009, the broadcast on TF1 of Asterix and Obelix. Mission Cleopatra by Alain Chabat brought together 8.9 million French people in front of their television. Or 35.5% market share. During his “Late Show”, last December, the former Nul

was probably not wrong to tell Guillaume Canet that it was hard to pass after him in the village of the irreducible Gauls. With a very comfortable budget, 65 million euros (15 million more than for the adaptation of Chabat), the director of Petit Mouchoirs took two years to produce this new adventure, in theaters this Wednesday, February 1. Our heroes fly there to the aid of a princess in danger… in China. It is also the first time that a film does not take up a plot imagined by the Uderzo-Goscinny tandem.

A reference

From the trailer of The middle Empire, we understand if only by the pranks of Jonathan Cohen, José Garcia or Jérôme Commandeur that the imprint of Chabat has not disappeared. That it is even perhaps complicated to follow another track than his.

Because, yes, his Asterix, which has just celebrated its 20th birthday, remains a reference. At the box office with its 14 million admissions. But also by its staging and the place left to the supporting roles which return Asterix (played by Christian Clavier) and Obelix (by Gérard Depardieu) to the rank of simple spectators.

Admirable naivety

Like us, they witness the hissing of Gérard Darmon (Amonbofis), this lion who does not associate himself with the ****roach Numérobis embodied with admirable naivety by Jamel Debbouze, then at the height of his glory. Like us, they hear the unforgettable monologue of Édouard Baer, ​​under the Egyptian headdress of Otis the scribe: “But you know, I don’t think there are good or bad situations…Two minutes of a totally improvised tirade that should have been cut during editing. Fortunately, Chabat did not give in to its producers. Like us, they have fun with the lines of the centurion Caïus Céplus. Which remind us that Dieudonné could have been funny, in the past…

an old obsession

To say that Chabat did not initially intend to attack Asterix… When he met Claude Berri, in this year 1999, he had in mind, him the former kid rocked by the adventures of the magazine Pilote , to adapt two Spirou adventures, L’Ombre du Z and Z comme Zorglub. The producer has another idea in mind, an old obsession, that, as our colleague Jérôme Lachasse, comic book specialist on the BFMTV site, reminds us, of having him adapt an album by the irreducible Gauls. Claude Berri had already asked him a few years earlier to rewrite the dialogues of Asterix and Obelix against Caesar by Claude Zidi, which Chabat had politely (and fortunately) refused.

Respect and fantasy

This time, he lets himself be seduced by the proposal. But he hesitates a lot before choosing Asterix and Cleopatra. The rest, we know. She is the very example of a successful adaptation. Which respects both the dialogues of Goscinny but also incorporates a dose of absurdity and unbridled fantasy, notably through the constant references to popular culture, from the saga Star Wars, to the Alexandria of Claude François via a famous telephone service at the time, Itinéris. The genius of Alain Chabat is to have known how to combine all these ingredients in a cauldron to find the recipe for the magic potion. So, yes, courage Guillaume Canet!

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