Fourth Installment of French Astérix Franchise to film in Ireland
The Euro co-production ‘Astérix and Obélix: God Save Britannia' has been green lit for filming in Ireland later this summer.
With an estimated €50 million budget, the fourth instalment of the very successful Astérix franchise is expected to shoot here for 4-5 weeks in August and September and will be the first 3D live action film to shoot in Ireland.
Speaking about the shoot, Naoise Barry Film Commissioner, the Irish Film Board said that "Ireland is one of the go-to destinations in Europe for large international feature film and television series. Foreign producers are choosing to shoot projects like Astérix, The Tudors, Camelot and This Must Be The Place in Ireland because it makes financial sense, and one of our key selling points is easy access to film locations. We have a wide variety of urban and rural film locations within a very small geographic area. In London, Paris or New York you need to travel for 6 hours if you want to shoot rural and urban settings in the same day. But filmmakers only need to travel for 60 minutes in the Dublin and Wicklow area to find everything from rolling meadows, mountains, lakes and coast, to wonderful period architecture."
He went on to say "the close proximity of all these elements to Ardmore film studios and Dublin airport is our big selling point, saving foreign filmmakers time and money. This competitive advantage over other big international capital cities has attracted €100m of foreign film and television production in 2010 alone!"
Co-written and directed by Laurent Tirard (Little Nicholas), ‘Astérix and Obélix: God Save Britannia' will star Edouard Baer (Molière), Gérard Depardieu (Cyrano de Bergerac), Fabrice Luchini (Molière) and Catherine Deneuve (Indochine).
Irish locations for filming are to include Brittas Bay, Luggala, Childers Wood, Annamoe in Co. Wicklow and Listoke Garden in Co. Louth with possible locations on the West of Ireland currently being explored. The film will also shoot on location across Malta and Hungary.
It will be produced by Marc Missonnier and Olivier Delbosc of Fidelite Films along with James Flynn of Octagon Films. Octagon and Fidelite have previously collaborated on Dorothy Mills in 2008 and also The Hideaways which is due to have its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival this week.
More about ‘Astérix and Obélix: God Save Britannia'
Penned by Laurent Tirard and Gregoire Vigneron and directed by Tirard, the film is a broad adaptation of Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo's original 1966 comicbook ‘Asterix in Britain'.
Set in ancient Gaul, the film toplines French comedian Edouard Baer as Asterix and Gerard Depardieu as Obelix with Catherine Deneuve playing the Queen of England and Fabrice Luchini playing Caesar.
The Asterix franchise is the biggest French-language franchise of the last decade. International and Gallic theatrical and DVD rights are being handled by Wild Bunch.