The famous series “The Office of Legends”, completed in 2020, could soon come back to life. Its producer, Alex Berger, announced on November 4 to Agence France-Presse that a sequel project, whose working title is “Le bureau Afrique”, is in preparation. This new component should this time lead French agents onto the African terrain, and would focus on the complex geopolitics of the continent. “We already have several scenarios, but, for the moment, this remains a project in development“, declared Alex Berger during his participation in the International Audiovisual Content Exhibition, in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
“I don’t think it’ll be a season six… though!”
Alex Berger sees in this framework fertile ground for espionage intrigues that resonate with current events and Franco-African relations. “France’s historic relationship with West African countries is a good playing field“, he confides. “France’s geopolitics points more towards Africa, after Françafrique. The events that occurred in Niger, Burkina Faso or Mali are things that interest us”he said, while putsches disrupted the international relations of these three countries with France.
Broadcast in more than a hundred countries, “The office of legends”mainly focused on the Middle East, stood out for its realism. Appreciated even within the General Directorate of External Security (DGSE), the intelligence and anti-terrorism service which inspired the fiction, the series has attracted spectators eager to follow the adventures of French agents in immersion at abroad, in places as diverse as Iran and Syria. This time, more than a new burst of episodes, it will therefore be a question of exploring new themes, even if the producer still remains vague on this subject: “The idea was to be able to leave enough time between the two series, so as not to abandon a simple sequel. I don’t think it will be a season six… though!“, he warns.
ALSO READ: “Voices are faked thanks to artificial intelligence”: How France 2 managed to film within the DGSE for its event documentary
The producer also did not specify where the new missions of the agents would take place, nor gave a filming date. Since the project began in 2021, several African countries seemed suitable for the scenario, but this list was revised after the recent putsches in the Sahel. “Qhen we started developing the idea in 2021, there were five plausible countries for our story“, explains Alex Berger, who prefers to proceed with caution: “The obsession, for us, is to be plausible and credible“.
At the same time, the universe of “The Bureau of Legends” is exported to the United States with “The Agency”, a ten-episode remake produced by George Clooney, scheduled to be broadcast at the end of November. In this American version, Michael Fassbender plays a CIA agent, supported by Richard Gere in the role of head of the London office. This project won over Alex Berger: “It’s fantastically well done, it’s very serious“, he testifies. An international adventure which marks a new chapter for the cult series.
