While Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom by Guillaume Canet tallies 2.4 million admissions on the international scene, Ardavan Safaee, President of Pathé Films, and Marie-Laure Montironi, Executive Vice President of International Sales, reflect on the launch and international sales strategies employed by the century-old company for the release outside French borders of a film awaited throughout the world.
Unifrance: When and how did the Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom project arrive at Pathé?
Ardavan Safaee & Marie-Laure Montironi: In 2019, Guillaume Canet and the producers Alain Attal and Yohan Baiada contacted us after obtaining the rights from Éditions Albert René. We immediately embarked on this project, armed with our experiences from the first three adaptations.
What does the Asterix franchise represent in cinemas internationally, when the last live-action film in the series dates from 2011? Are expectations the same as in France?
The Asterix franchise represents millions of admissions abroad, both for live-action and animation versions [since 1998, the three animated Asterix films have accumulated 9.57 million admissions abroad, and the four live-action films, 38.36 million]. Expectations on the international market are very high, as the franchise is well known, especially in Western and Eastern Europe. The international market can represent more than half the admissions generated in France for such a film. To date, 2.4 million tickets have been sold outside of France for this latest film, which is quite exceptional. And the film's career isn't over since it's due to release on May 18 in Germany, a country traditionally important for Asterix.
Was this episode also conceived with the international market in mind, particularly the Asian market? Was any thought given to the complexity of all the subtleties of the film's language, puns, and references?
Each Asterix is conceived to adapt as best as possible to the whole world and to all generations. Concerning the Asian market in particular, the latter being so specific, it is complicated to make a French film with French puns and a Gallic backdrop perfectly adapted for China or Japan. We made an attempt by going to see the Chinese and the local authorities very early on and by considering a co-production, but Covid came and slowed us down. However, when you offer a great show and adventure, this ensures that the film has a life and is also exhibited in Asia in theaters and especially digitally.
When did you start working on international marketing, and what were the priorities?
The international marketing of a film of this kind is thought out well in advance. The idea is to coordinate as much as possible the worldwide releases and to produce and think of each marketing element for France and abroad at the same time, by offering a range of TV spots, trailers or teasers, no matter how slight, and by anticipating all the worldwide clearances. Delivery and anticipation for a perfect synchronization is essential. With this type of film, piracy can harm its proper exhibition. Therefore, it's essential to encourage our distributors to release the film as close as possible to the French release, which was the case in most countries, with the release spread over the month of February 2023, a bit like a blockbuster. A colossal and successful undertaking!
The film's scale and its €64 million budget, makes Asterix one of the biggest budgets in French cinema. When it comes to marketing the film, do you feel that such an investment must be handled with infinite precautions and that there is no room for error?
The franchise needed to be renewed after 10 years without a live-action film, but it still had a strong appeal for buyers. The script and cast were instant drawcards, which allowed us to secure many important territories before shooting, such as Germany, Spain, Italy, and Poland, without forgetting Netflix, which is accompanying us on a block of countries. We are always demanding with ourselves, whatever the film, but we also do this job for this kind of challenge!
Was it an "expensive" film for foreign distributors?
The film was released on the market taking into account its budget, at the moment we had a good script and a strong cast. This is certainly a big investment for each distributor, especially since they also have to plan their marketing expenses. It was therefore essential to target distributors most capable of working on a film of this scale. Each distributor's experience and their position in their local market is essential, as well as the release date chosen to avoid too much competition.
Asterix is a mainstream, popular film, which doesn't pass through any festivals before its release. How was the film's profile raised outside France? Through talent travelling to promote it? Previews? Were there any special operations around the film?
Numerous interviews relating to the film were organized, some of the cast accompanied the film's release in various parts of the world, and promotional operations and partnerships also came into play, for example with Citroën. This helped to establish strong brand awareness once again. In addition, support from Éditions Albert René and its sub-publishers in each country made it possible to support promotional activities and thereby to mobilize readers of the comics and the community of fans to the maximum.
Are the film's results abroad up to expectations? In which territories did the film work well? Which territories were disappointing?
We are very satisfied with the results abroad, with in particular an exceptional score in Poland, defying all competition, of 780,000 admissions! The life of each film is tallied across all media, so we have experienced no disappointments to date, except to say that Italians and Spaniards are slower to return en masse to theaters.
Pathé managed the production, French release, and sales of another huge French film in 2023, The Three Musketeers - D'Artagnan. Is the international approach for this film broadly the same as for Asterix?
The approach is globally the same in terms of choice of distributors, sales force, marketing, and global coordination. The franchise was not as big as Asterix, but the novel and its adaptations were nevertheless known all over the world. This awareness, coupled with a few minutes of "promo" presented very early in the shoot, allowed us to close sales quickly. We are proud to continue to bring French heritage to life all over the world and we will continue to do so.
