One of Berri's biggest gambles here has been to have entrusted France's biggest ever film budget ever to the relatively inexperienced Alain Chabat, a gifted cable TV funnyman (from the fertile Canal Plus fold) who has only directed one feature previously.
#Asterix et cleopatre full
Both, however, fail to do full justice to the idiosyncratic originality of the comic strip creations - although to judge by box-office results the strip's vast legion of fans don't seem to mind. By general consent this new instalment is superior in rollicking one-liner humour to its predecessor but for rhythm, dramatic coherence and easy charm Zidi's film perhaps scores more points. Based on the comic strip created in 1959 by Albert Uderzo and Rene Goscinny, whose 30 comic albums have sold some 280m copies worldwide, Mission Cleopatra is the second live-action screen adaptation and comes three years after Claude Zidi's 1999 hit Asterix And Obelix Versus Caesar.īoth films were produced by the high-rolling Claude Berri (whose other major production, Costa-Gavras' Amen, is currently paying off here). In addition, it has already entered the German charts at number one, taking Euros 2.7m from 705 screens, with further rollouts planned or underway in Switzerland, Holland and Finland.
(The champ remains the 1966 Louis de Funes-Bourvil war farce La Grande Vadrouille with 17m admissions). In a mere six weeks, the record-setting $42m blockbuster comedy has racked up 12.9m admissions ($61.9m) in France from 898 sites, and should replace 1992 Gaumont time-warp comedy Les Visiteurs as the second top-grossing French film of all time. Mission Cleopatra has come, been seen and conquered.