Announced as a big financial oven due to its pharaonic budget for a production made in France – 66 million euros budget excluding marketing costs – the mastodon of Guillaume Canet, Asterix and Obelix: The Middle Empire, should limit breakage. If things had started well for the film with 1.8 million spectators for its first week of operation, the disastrous word-of-mouth of the feature film will have done a lot of harm to the film of the band at Canet. After two months in French theaters, Asterix and Obelix accumulate the trifle of 47.5 million euros in revenue – Wikipedia figures – French and European. Unifrance even reports that the film’s international figures would be re-evaluated to 12 million euros in revenue. Far from its initial objective of 6 million spectators in France – the film has accumulated 4.6 million curious people – the Blockbuster has caught up well internationally where it has worked well, and in particular in Poland (727,000 entries). It has become the most viewed French film internationally since the pandemic period. COVID-19.
Mocked from all sides in France, many presaged bankruptcy for Pathé Films after this heavy investment. However, it should be noted: This last Asterix absolutely not going to be a profitable film, but the losses should be minimal.
Lots of numbers of Asterix are still kept under lock and key by Pathe but the firm seems to have known how to steer its boat to manage to keep the ship afloat. There is no doubt that the last quarter of 2023 will allow us to have certain figures on the total route of production.
In addition to the lackluster but far from dishonorable performance of the film in cinemas, the feature film is available on netflix in several countries where it seems to perform well. The receipts related to the exploitation of the film in streaming and soon the SVOD and sales DVDs / Blu-Rays should make it possible to increase a little more the receipts and approach appreciably the bar of the 66 million to refund the costs of production.
In the columns of Sunday newspaper, Guillaume Canet in any case assured that his film was not a flop. He also announced that he had suffered from the critics and that he wanted to wait a bit before taking over the reins of a big cinematographic machinery:
“It is absolutely not a failure. It was sold all over the world and to date has made more than 2 million admissions internationally, with boxes in Europe, in Poland for example. (…) Me, I worked for five years to achieve what I wanted to do: a great adventure show. Some people like it, others don’t. The best ratings or reviews don’t always go to the films that attract the most viewers. I hope I will make another film that will please my detractors more and change their minds about my work. »
Be that as it may, it is therefore long-term profitability that is envisaged for the last Asterix and Obelix. The assessment of the rooms is mixed but not catastrophic, and the feature film of Pathe should collect additional money thanks to its exploitation SVOD, streaming and in physical format. It should also, in the coming years, make the glory of Sunday evening on TF1 and record TV revenue. If it is necessary to wait until the end of the year for real figures, we can in any case certify it: Guillaume Canet’s film is not a collateral failure.