Since hitting British screens in August, both episodes of Mesrine are proving a popular success across the Channel.
Mesrine: L'instinct de mort (Mesrine: Part 1 - Death Instinct) was released by Alliance/Momentum Pictures on August 7. One month down the track, the film by Jean-François Richet has clocked up close to 120,000 admissions, an excellent score for a subtitled French film. This ranks the production as one of Great Britain's three most popular French films of 2009 (after Coco Before Chanel and The Class).
The second episode, Mesrine: L'ennemi public n°1 (Mesrine: Part 2 - Public Enemy #1), is following in the footsteps of the first installment, currently boasting 30,000 admissions after 10 days on the screens following its release late August.
This triumph can be partially credited to the promotional campaign undertaken by lead actor Vincent Cassel, organized by the films’ distributor and Unifrance in the lead-up their release. Cassel spent two days in London early June to meet with the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) and numerous journalists from The Guardian, The Daily Mirror, Metro, and so on. His visit was met with enthusiasm by the press, as shown by a selection of articles attached to this page.
