Goodness gracious! A round of hot water for the entire Gaulish village! On Monday, 1 February, Les Editions Albert René and the FIDELITE production company announced an agreement for a new feature-length film.The 4th adaptation of the Asterix Adventures is to be directed by Laurent Tirard, who will also be co-writing the script with Grégoire Vigneron, based on the album Asterix in Britain. Already produced as an animated film in 1986, Asterix in Britain is jam-packed with unforgettable scenes that we are dying to see in real-life action: the excitement of Asterix and Obelix’s reunion at the Tower of London, an unexpected rugby match, an entire legion of wine-weary Romans, the delights of lukewarm beer and boiled boar with mint sauce, the exquisite care of the most impeccably kept lawn in the Ancient World, and the story of how tea became the Britons’ national beverage, thanks to Getafix’s well-meaning pranks....  Sounds promising for the big-screen adaptation, doesn’t it? No doubt about it, Asterix’s return to the cinema is a real piece of luck! Click here to learn more about the first 3 live-action films adapted from the Asterix universe. |
Thursday 18 February 2010
Asterix heads back to the movie theatres!
Wednesday 2 April 2008
The official asterix.com website - Cinema - Edition - The Translation Exchange
 A titanic struggle is underway between the Gauls and the Ch'tis, if the French media are to be believed when quoting box office figures for the films Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis and Asterix at the Olympic Games. They seem to be forgetting the affectionate ties formed in recent years between the Gaulish folk and the peoples of Northern France, thanks to the publication of two albums in Picard Astérix i rinte à l'école (Asterix and the Class Act) and Ch'village copè in II (Asterix and the Great Divide). This might even explain the recent, large increase in visits to our blog Astérix en Picard. You'd think that Asterix had fallen in the Ch'ti cauldron! Ichi, in s'edvise in picard! Such is the motto of the Gauls and Romans transported to "Bedsum" in Asterix i rinte à l'école, a surprise bestseller of the year 2004 A.D., with more than 150,000 copies sold. Much sought after, the translations of Asterix albums in the land of the Ch'tis are like a fine swig of Picard magic potion! By using several alternate forms of Picard, and attributing each local variant to a short story (in Asterix and the Class Act) or a group of characters (in Asterix and the Great Divide), the two albums form an incredible collection of beautifully referenced jokes. The Roman centurion Umbrageous becomes Viendonboirénegoutedjus, in tribute to the song by Edmond Tanière, Eune goutte ed jus, whilst Histrionix and Melodrama, the two lovers in The Great Divide, are renamed Fonsix and Zulmine, in homage to Alphonse and Zulma, the heroes created by poet Léopold Simons, a famous Picard author. And for all adoptive Ch'tis, in other words practically all of Gaul since the beginning of 2008, a glossary in each album allows the uninitiated to sample the true pleasure of an Asterix translation in Picard. The only thing missing was a map of Gaulish-held Northern France unveiled by the famous magnifying glass at the beginning of all Asterix albums… But yes, we've thought of that too, and you can discover it here on our special Asterix in Picard page! Good news always comes in pairs, and as such we have decided to concoct a special page for each of the languages into which the Asterix albums are translated. After Picard, take a look at Asterix in Latin and Asterix in Hebrew. So now we're only… 101 languages away from completing the Asterix translation set! Tapidesourix has got some work to do! All the more so if the rumour about a forthcoming 105th language is true… Stay tuned to future Missives!
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Tuesday 19 February 2008
Magic potion special effects for Asterix!
 Click on the images to discover the backdrops before and after the addition of special effects. Whilst the scene lacks little by way of wit, the magic of the universe created by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo is cruelly absent… How can the big screen do justice to the wealth of extraordinary landscapes depicted by Albert Uderzo in the Asterix albums? This is where visual effects specialists come in with their "VFX". Armed with computers strong enough to power a whole empire, and the wherewithal to master any situation, they take some of the most fantastic inventions born of the unbridled imagination of Asterix's creators and bring them to life. A remarkable article from the VFX World magazine discloses the secrets behind the making of the Asterix at the Olympic Games film, described as "the biggest vfx achievement in France". 
Once again, Asterix sets records tumbling: some 1,400 shots required special effects, more than the previous two films combined! Not one but three different companies (Duboi, BUF Compagnie and Mikros Image) pooled their talents to create the most ambitious film backdrops (Caesar's palace, Olympia, King Obnoxious's palace) and breathe life into all the sequences of derring-do (the chariot races, a druid whose body is spectacularly stretched to no harm, the effect of the magic potion on a horse, etc.).The feats are manifold, from beetles, motionless on the film set and reanimated in post-production, to more than 100,000 legionaries generated virtually for Brutus's dream sequence… Further proof that adapting an Asterix adventure is akin to attempting the impossible, because of the continual struggle to reconcile the cartoony effect, and remain faithful to the comic book illustrations, and realistic action so as not to break the thread of the film.  Click on the images to discover the backdrops before and after the addition of special effects. The conclusion of this exciting article particularly pleased us, with its comment that Asterix at the Olympic Games could mark the beginning of a new era; since employing three competing companies to share the making of vfx shots in a film had never been done before. Such is the nature of the "real" magic potion, which never fails to unite all fans of the most famous of all Gauls around a large banquet! |
Tuesday 19 February 2008
Unable to take over as calife from his calife father Julius Caesar, Brutus has received an enviable consolation prize: his tomfoolery, underhand manoeuvres and various plots, always doomed for failure - much to our amusement - have made him a real international celebrity: the Asterix at the Olympic Games film is a box office success the world over! Caesar is stunned: the figures presented to him are impressive to say the least! In particular, the success of the film in Russia has attracted the attention of Variety and Le Film Français, two references in the professional world, who have broadcasted news of the film far and wide. More generally, the film is also enjoying an enormous impact in Eastern European countries, where Asterix is growing in popularity, whilst Greece reserved a special welcome for this film, which sees the Asterix universe being played out in the lands of Olympia.    But French Asterix fans can breathe easy since they can now discover the first issue of the new Ciné Fan magazine on sale at kiosks, which is entirely given over to the Asterix at the Olympic Games film. 36 (or rather XXXVI!) glossy pages await all Asterix collectors and fans. The menu is generous, befitting any banquet attended by our indomitable heroes: portraits of the film's heroes, games, a megaquiz, stickers and four collector's posters are all included! It's enough to redecorate your "home sweet home" with Asterix! Impedimenta is going to adore it! Finally, the news channel LCI has a lovely podcast with Albert Uderzo. The co-creator of Asterix responds to emails sent in by… the characters from the comic books! Obelix, Cacofonix, and Getafix, amongst others, conduct a no-holds-barred interview with their creator in a revealing interview, full of surprises. You have to envy them the way they talk to their creator! |
Monday 18 February 2008
Asterix, Obelix and the Roman Gluteus Maximus are the stars of the moment in the Asterix at the Olympic Games puzzles.Three new puzzles make their proud entrance into the Asterix universe: a 500-piece “live” jigsaw, featuring stars Clovis Cornillac (Asterix) and Gérard Depardieu (Obelix), a classic comic-book 200-piece jigsaw immortalizing the moment when Asterix and Obelix meet the Roman Gluteus Maximus, and finally a comic-book puzzle ball of our favourite heroes.
It’s easy to see the future in this Asterix puzzle ball: 2008 will be a very special year for all Asterix fans and collectors!
See also:
The special Asterix at the Olympic Games film website
Asterix puzzles
Friday 8 February 2008
The world goes crazy for Asterix at the Olympic Games
First the invasion of the Smurfs, now the invasion by the Gauls! And this too is for a good cause: side-splitting laughter! The long-awaited Asterix at the Olympic Games film has finally arrived on the big screen and is already beating records… Firstly, the number of screens in Gaul showing the film is fit for the imperial grandeur of Julius Caesar himself: 1,074! The previous record of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, of which 1007 copies were distributed in 2002, has been beaten! In a few weeks, the film will be released on many more thousands of screens (5,000 according to Le Nouvel Observateur, 6,000 according to Le Monde… Anybody willing to go higher?!?) in more than 60 countries! It's enough to believe that all roads, at least this time around, lead to Olympia!
Because the release of the film, should you need any reminding, is an international event, each host country has been busy preparing festivities. Already, in the build-up to the film's release, it's been a tale of one première following another at breakneck speed (Munich, Namur, Warsaw and, of course Athens!), allowing actors from the Gaulish super-production to meet their fans. And just like during the Tour de France, "local heroes" have been given a particularly warm ovation on their own patch: Benoît Poelvoorde (Brutus) stole the show in Namur, Michael "Bully" Herbig (Silenceus) in Munich… Such is the effect of producer Thomas Langmann's carefully planned international cast list, whose qualities Albert Uderzo was keen to stress in a recent interview he gave to Figaro Magazine, listing all the foreign actors in the film: "There's one German, two Italians, a Belgian, a Spaniard... and then there's Alain Delon who's international!"The first figures we have to hand, relayed to us by the druid Statistix, are encouraging: the film is a roaring success in Belgium, thanks no doubt to Benoît Poelvoorde. In Poland, the indomitable Gauls have made the news, with a welcome even more warm than that of Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra, with audiences up by more than 50% after the first weekend.
The same is true in Lutetia, where the first media figures have reported record numbers of filmgoers, and a better start than that enjoyed by the previous film.
But enough of the statistics! The only thing that counts now is audiences having a good time.
And for this, the film lacks nothing: the spectacle of epic chariot racing in the Olympic stadium, the love story between Lovesix and Princess Irina, the suspense of the plots being concocted against Caesar and, as always, gags, gags, and more gags, with unforgettable performances by Benoît Poelvoorde, José Garcia, Alexandre Astier, Franck Dubosc...
And let's not forget the rousing finale, in keeping with any of the famous last-page village banquets, starring Zinédine Zidane in particular, whose interpretation of the talented Numberten has stolen the scene, if the first positive reviews on the "web" are to be believed.
