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FILMS France

Michel Vaillant revved up to go

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The EuropaCorp mega-production by Luc Besson and Pierre Ange Le Pogam is on the starting grid. The film is Michel Vaillant and it is dedicated to the world of car racing and adapted from the famous cartoon of the same name. A world premiere of the film will be shown at the Tokyo International Film Festival, before it is released in France and Belgium on November 19, and the day after in Holland.

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Luc Besson is a big fan of Formula 1 and Rally car racing, a world that is closely linked to his passion for spectacular cinema. He co-wrote the screenplay for Michel Vaillant taking much inspiration from the many comics drawn by Jean Graton, published from 1957. The film has a budget of €22.8m and it is the 4th film to be supported by the CNC in 2002 (after the funding of €36.1m for Blueberry, €27.4m for Tais Toi and €27.2m for Bon Voyage). The EuropaCorp studios haven’t skimped on the transformation of this hero’s adventures for the big screen. The shooting started in June 2002 on the Le Mans racetrack, before moving to Italy in September 2002, then filming on some snow rally sequences continued in Quebec and then Iceland for racing over ice, without forgetting some scenes that were shot on a motorway currently under construction in France.
Michel Vaillant is the second feature film by Louis-Pascal Couvelaire, and it stars Sagamore Stévenin and Diane Kruger (My Idol) and the South African actor Peter Youngblood Hills (The Beach). The story is about a battle on and off the racetrack between the team from Vaillantes and its rival, the Leaders, showing racing sequences and accidents the like of which the production claim have never been seen before in cinemas.
The film is co-produced by TF1 with a contribution of €762,000 with an additional sum of €1.829m for the broadcasting rights for its television channel. Michel Vaillant will be distributed in France by EuropaCorp, and it is already planned to be released in Tokyo at Christmas time.

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(Translated from French)

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