Asterix and Obelix: The Middle Kingdom is not “dark shit” according to Guillaume Canet, who still defends his film, two years after the violent criticism.
“Almost completely missed”, “a turnip at 65 million euros”, “disappointing, long and tasteless”… Asterix and Obelix: The Middle Kingdom was crushed by French critics when it was released in cinemas in early 2023, posting a poor press average of 2.4/5 and, even worse, 1.7/5 among spectators. The film was unanimously against him but, in May 2023, Guillaume Canet defended his Asterix explaining that it was not a failure at all.
However, indisputably, Asterix and Obelix: The Middle Kingdom did not have the expected success at the box office with “only” 4.6 million admissions in France (the fourth highest score out of five films) and 46.4 million dollars collected worldwide (the worst score of the saga). Since then, Guillaume Canet has put production on hold for the moment and has resumed his all-terrain acting role as in To Life on Netflix. On the occasion of the release of the action film, he took the opportunity to return to his Gallic experience.
Asterisk and Journey
During an interview with Allocinated to discussTo Life where he plays a GIGN agent caught up in his past, Guillaume Canet was able to take stock of Asterix and Obelix: The Middle Kingdom. The journalist asked him how he protected himself from the mass negative criticism that invaded social networks at the time:
“I’ll take it. That's the rule actually, we do something, we expose ourselves, we work for something. Afterwards, people don't understand it. What I found unfair about Asterix was that a lot of people talked about the film without having seen it. Afterwards, people talked about the film having seen it and not having liked it. I hear that. »
However, he explained by returning to the complications experienced during filming, sometimes preventing him from doing exactly what he would have wanted to do and perhaps explaining certain errors or bad choices:
-“Afterwards, people don’t know how to cook. They don't know that Alain Chabat, when he made his film which is an absolute masterpiece, he was not accountable to the rights holders. He can make all the jokes he wants. But for me, when I make my film, it's rights holders who have the right to review the script, the slightest comma, the slightest mistake. It limits a lot and it's complicated when we find ourselves with talented actors like Jonathan Cohen, like Ramzy, like Manu Payet, who have this ability to improvise and be very funny, to not be able to give them that freedom. . »
The empire of work
According to him, it remains an enriching experience despite everything, with elements with which he is satisfied and other elements which he regrets, but should allow him to do better in the future (for a next work):
« It was an experience. I lived it, I did the best I could and I'm proud of it because there are many young people who come to see me today who loved the film, the film traveled to the stranger and I don't think it's some dark shit either. When there is criticism, I take it as I should take it, which is to question myself and say to myself: “OK, they didn't like that”. I know why, which I'll explain to you a little here. And then other things too perhaps that I didn't succeed. »
As a reminder, it must be said that Guillaume Canet originally did not want to play Asterix even though he was already a director. It was Pathé who finally pushed him to accept the roledespite an already enormous workload with the staging and the screenplay to manage. Suffice to say that certain stars were not necessarily well aligned to make his task easier, which can also explain the final chaos. Guillaume Canet should not return as Asterix anytime soon in any case.
The new movie Asterix and Obelix should be supervised by Fabien Onteniente (the Camping, Three Zeros), should take place in Corsica and Philippe Lacheau would be in the race to become the new face of the Gaul with the blond mustache. Until we get details, we can find Asterix and Obelix in the series The Battle of the Leaders on Netflix, supervised by… Alain Chabat from this first half of 2025. The hype is great.
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