Asterix: The Secret of the Magic Potion

A 60th Anniversary Quest

Cast: Alex Lutz, Alexandre Astier, Florence Foresti, Christian Clavier, Guillaume Briat, Elie Semoun, Daniel Mesguich, Bernard Alane, François Morel, Lionnel Astier
Directors: Alexandre Astier, Louis Clichy
Genre: Adventure, Animation
Rated: PG
Running Time: 105 minutes

Synopsis: On the 60th anniversary of the much-adored comic book series, Asterix and Obelix embark on a quest across Gaul looking for a young druid worthy of learning the secret of the magic potion –a formula which has long helped to keep the Gaulish village safe against Julius Cesar and his invading army. However, once Asterix and Obelix begin their quest, all hell breaks loose at home as the Romans start attacking the village, and an evil wizard named Sulfurix does everything he can to steal the potion's secret recipe.

Asterix: The Secret of the Magic Potion
Release Date: May 31st, 2019

Producer's Statement

Producing an Asterix movie is always an exciting and delicate adventure. These characters have been a reflection of French society for 60 years and fans are always waiting for new adventures with passion and curiosity.

5 years ago, when we produced the first 3D animated movie based on the Asterix comic book The Mansion Of The Gods, the challenge of translating character drawings into computer animated images was both technical and artistic. How do you restore the same energy and emotion conveyed by Albert Uderzo's drawings into computer animates images? It was by taking a bet on a young director, Louis Clichy, who graduated from the animation school Gobelins and trained at Pixar, that we found the solution. This film reached 3 million admissions in France, much of it from 3D screenings, and exceeded 3 million admissions internationally, which made it one of the most successful French films in 2015.

Louis Clichy has now become a respected figure in French animation, and he agreed to partner with us once again in the adventure of Asterix: The Secret Of The Magic Potion with Alexandre Astier. The stakes of the film were even higher as it was the first time that the Asterix rights-holders authorised a movie to be made with an original story and not adapted from one of the many published comic books. René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo had only undertaken this once before, 40 years ago, with the production of the The 12 Tasks Of Asterix with Dogmatix Studios (studios Idefix), which remains to this day the biggest success of an Asterix film internationally. There is an enormous amount of trust and great responsibility to take up the challenge of producing an original story. Alexandre Astier put forward the story of Asterix: The Secret Of The Magic Potion, which he wrote and co-directed with Louis Clichy, playing with the codes that this great universe offered, adding surprise without betraying, and developed with respect.

There were much higher stakes, as an original story means new characters and new graphics, which must be consistent with the Asterix brand with modernity and harmony. Since the release of the first 3D Asterix film, technologies have made tremendous progress and gave us the opportunity to be more ambitious, with the development of many new features that will benefit to other French animation projects in the future.

In an animated movie, the character voices are key and our project is part of a unique approach for a French animated film of this scale, with the aim that the animation of the characters is inspired by Asterix's universe. Usually for 3D animated films, the original voices are English which serve the basis for the animators. French voices are then post synchronised once the movie is made. For Asterix: The Secret Of The Magic Potion, we decided to do the opposite. The original voices are French actors including Christian Clavier, Daniel Mesguich, Bernard Alane, François Morel, Florence Foresti, Elie Semoun, Gérard Hernandez, Lionnel Astier and Alex Lut. It is their typical French voices that guided our animators, and an English version was made post-synchronisation with English speaking talent.

To produce the ambitious and innovative animated film Asterix: The Mansions Of The Gods with a budget of just over 30M€, we chose to work with animation studio Mikros. Based in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, Mikros was renowned in the field of special effects, but had never produced an animated feature film. Thanks to the trust of M6 Studio who brought them this opportunity, Mikros became one of the major producers of animated films, produced movies like Mune: Guardian Of The Moon (2014), The Little Prince (2015) and Sahara (2017). Backed by their reputation, Mikros, now part of the Technicolor Group, was chosen by Paramount and Dreamworks to produce some of their films, part of which were made in Paris. M6 Studio is proud to have contributed to the emergence of a new French player in the field of animation and special effects and it is therefore natural that we have chosen to renew our trust in Mikros for Asterix: The Secret Of The Magic Potion.

Ambitious French animation projects often make the choice of offshore production in Canada, especially in view of the tax advantages in this territory. But we could not resign ourselves to produce an Asterix animated film abroad as a film like this should be an opportunity to gather all the French expertise, as René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo did with the creation of the Dogmatix Studios. Despite the significant financial risks, the M6 Group made the choice to entirely produce Asterix: The Secret Of The Magic Potion in France with the support of the Ile-de-France Region and Visual Creation from the CNC (Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée).
- Philippe Bony

Asterix: The Secret of the Magic Potion
Release Date: May 31st, 2019