It is indeed the most ambitious feature film of its kind that we have been asked to co-finance, at least for its Walloon involvement. Asterix and the Kingdom of the Gods, a 3D film [voir photo], will be made in Belgium: in Ghent(Grid), but mostly in Wallonia. Dreamwall will take care of the animation and modeling while Nozon will take care of the rendering, lighting and compositing.
In all, these two teams will have to spend nearly 400 days working on a work that is positioned without pretense as a potential competitor to American analog films.
Based on the seventeenth album of the Asterix comic book series by René Goscinny (script) and Albert Uderzo (drawing), the film will tell the story of how Julius Caesar decides to encircle the Gallic village by building a residential estate for Roman owners, called the “domain of the gods. This construction aims to civilize the diehards and to weaken them by depriving them of their main resource, the forest, and thus to make fall the last bastion which resists him and mocks him.
Faithful to the original book, the script was co-written by Alexandre Astier and Jean-Remi François and will be directed by Louis Clichy. The voice casting is not yet known, but it is whispered that the indispensable Roger Carel (85 years old) will return to the recording studios to lend his voice to the little blond warrior.
This will be the 8th animated adaptation of an Asterix book after Asterix the Gaul (1967 – 2,415,230 spectators in France, The Twelve Labors of Asterix (1976 – 2,206,163), Asterix and Caesar’s Surprise (1985 – 1,704,226), Asterix and the Bretons (1986 – 1.724,770), Asterix and the Menhir’s blow (1989 – 1,442,311), Asterix and the Indians (1995 – 1,059,709) and Astrix and the Vikings (2006 – 1,374,027).
