Asterix - The Secret of the Magic Potion (2018)

[esteban²]

ASTERIX - LE SECRET DE LA POTION MAGIQUE // Bande-annonce teaser - YouTube

Asterix: The Secret of the Magic Potion (Asterix: Le Secret de la potion magique) revealed its first trailer.

Directed by Alexandre Astier and Louis Clichy, the trailer is in French only (though Youtube auto-translate can give a sense of what’s going on).

Based on the belove French comics created by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo, the series centers around the short Gallic warrior Asterix and his pal, Obelix, a sculptor who carries large stones around on his back. The duo, along with the rest of their Gaul village, resist Roman occupation in 50 B.C., primarily by means of a magic potion that temporarily gives them superhuman strength.

The new film is based on an original story written by co-director Astier:

The druid Getafix nimbly clambers up and down oak trees to gather mistletoe in the forests surrounding the Village of the Indomitable Gauls. But one day the expert climber has a bad fall. And my, does that get him worrying! What on earth would happen if he was incapacitated and couldn’t brew up his magic concoctions? With Asterix and Obelix by his side, he sets off to scour Gaul for a talented druid to pass on the secret of the Magic Potion…

The characters are no strangers to feature adaptations, having been the subject of nine animated films and four live-action films, dating back to the 1960s. Their first appearance in feature-length computer animated form, Asterix: The Mansions of the Gods (Asterix: Le domaine des dieux), also directed by Astier and Clichy, became France’s highest-grossing animated film of 2014, earning US$26.6 million, and topping $50 million worldwide. The film was never released in the United States.

Creative development and production on the new film are being handled at the Paris studio of Mikros Image Animation, which also produced the first cg effort. The Technicolor-owned company, with studios in Paris and Montreal, is best known for producing the animation on Captain Underpants, The Little Prince, and Sherlock Gnomes.

Production partners on The Secret of the Magic Potion include SND, M6 Studio, M6 Films, and publishing house Editions Albert Renee.

Asterix: The Secret of the Magic Potion is due to be released in French theaters on December 5, 2018. No distributor is onboard yet for stateside theatrical distribution.

This might be launched as Asterix 2 in some areas, since the previous movie was made in the same way, by the same studio.

* I could have sworn a thread was around already, can't find it, though.

[esteban²]

Maybe you have to know the comics to appreciate it, but for me this is one of the most pleasing teaser posters of the year so far.

[Aclea]

Agreed. Aside from the very poor 3D, The Mansion of the Gods was very good even with the changes made to the original, so hopefully they can maintain the quality with this one. Whether it gets a UK release like mansions is debatable: despite the books being very popular in the UK, the films have never done well - the animated films got limited distribution (12 Tasks probably got the widest release, but that was just a handful of prints slowly winding their way round the country), Asterix et Obelix Contre Cesar got a theatrical release with a decent English dub script by Terry Jones but did poor business: Cleopatre's very, very limited UK release was pulled literally at the last minute (there were ads in friday's papers but the theater supposedly showing it was showing something else) and went to DVD - thankfully with both a subtitled version of the French cut and the shorter dubbed Miramaxed cut - while Olympics went straight to DVD but Service de sa Majeste went unreleased (thankfully the French Bluray had English subtitles, albeit only on the 2D version of the feature).

The English dub on Mansions was pretty good (the Bluray doesn't include the French track), but unless it sold well on home video it's anybody's guess if a UK distributor thinks it's worth picking the new one up. I think we can write off any chance of an English-friendly US release.

[esteban²]

Good to read you enjoyed that one. I still haven't seen it myself, but I liked the trailer for Mansions of the Gods a lot. It gave the impression they actually captured the spirit of the comics very well. I still prefer the style of Asterix and the Vikings (2006), but also was surprised by how good the computer animation looks for these new movies.

Asterix still is pretty popular in Belgium, always has been, but the movies weren't big hits either. I'm not a fan of the live-action ones, just can't watch them.

Hoping for you the UK version will come, do well and has a good release on BR.

[Aclea]

Thanks - fingers crossed.

My thoughts on Mansions:



The traditional hand-drawn animated adaptations of the Asterix books have never quite worked as well as they should, with only the Goscinny and Uderzo directed The Twelve Tasks of Asterix capturing the mixture of knowing classical puns and violent slapstick of the comic books with much success (despite being an original screen story) while the live action films with Gerard Depardieu have varied wildly in quality, so you could be forgiven for having low expectations for the first computer animated outing for the indomitable Gauls, Asterix: The Mansions of the Gods (it's even the thirteenth completed Asterix film just to add fuel to the fires of doubt). But thankfully it’s been written and directed by people who get the books and their mixture of sly satire and cartoonish violence, sticking fairly close to the original story, expanding the plot of the 48-page book without feeling padded (being based on one of the best books in the series is a big help) while its departures work for the most part surprisingly well.

This time Julius Caesar comes up with his most diabolical plan to defeat the only village in Gaul to hold out from his invasion: gentrify the neighbourhood by building blocks of luxury flats and importing Roman citizens to the suburbs to chip away at the local culture with their spending power until the Gauls become Romanised – which, once they find out how much more they can charge for fish and fake antiques, they promptly do. As much a satire on consumerism, inflation, strikes and suburban living as a comedy adventure, it gets the mix just right. It’s not aimed at newcomers to the series, so the importance of the Gauls’ magic potion or the rarity of offering it to Obelix (who, as fans know, fell into the cauldron as a baby) is never really established, but most of what you need to know can be picked up along the way (such as the bard Cacophonix/Assurancetourix’s legendarily bad singing, which the Gauls weaponise this time round). For the initiated there are no pirates this time (they only appear hidden among the slaves), no “Et tu, Brute?” but plenty of fish fights and opportunities for the various villagers to parade their foibles and Dogmatix/Idefix to express his horror at uprooted trees, along with a striking mid-air ballet of Roman legionaries during one of Asterix and Obelix’s forays into the camp. There’s also a pleasingly energetic score from Philippe Rombi.

The English voice cast is a mixed bag (Matt Berry’s Vitalstatistix/ Abraracourcix, Harry Enfield’s Anonymus, Greg Davies’ Centurion Somoniferus and Donny Lucas’ slave negotiator Flaturtha are right on the money, Jim Broadbent is okay but miscast as Caesar while Catherine Tate just does a slightly less annoying version of the same loud voice she uses without variation for all of her characters), but it’s certainly one of the best dubbing jobs in any of the Asterix films. Unfortunately there’s no French language option on the UK disc, which means missing out on the original voice cast (Roger Carel, Laurent Lafitte, Alain Chabat et al) and a few of the more political jokes aimed at the French audience.

The only real disappointment is the very weak 3D, which barely registers or adds any real sense of depth for much of the film and even in the few money shots doesn’t bring much to the table, but since the UK Bluray features both 2D and 3D versions for the same regular price that's not quite as big a disappointment as if it had been at a premium price. No extras apart from the UK trailer, though.

[rwc]

FYI M6 Video are releasing a 4K + 3D edition in France which is already a good sign:


Here's the thread:
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=314198

[Socko]

Looks like fun. Too bad the French blu-ray wont feature english subtitles

[Takao]

Canadian release is on June 18th:



Like the Canadian release of Mansions, it defaults to French, but it also contains the English dub.

No 4K or 3D because it's Canada lol.

[BluBonnet]

Oh, well. We take what we can get

[TM2-Megatron]

This was down to $24.96 on Amazon Canada this weekend (they appear to be out of stock again for now, with it only being offered by third party sellers). I figured why not; so far this is the only home release that features the English dub, so perhaps I can pick up one of the 3-D editions and mux the English audio into it to get a 3-D version I can watch at home.

Kaleidoscope in the UK is the only chance for an eventual official 3-D release of the English dub. They released the Mansion of the Gods on 3-D blu-ray, but that was a few years ago now.

The slipcover eOne Canada gave this is surprisingly attractive (the artwork is pictured above... the dramatic close-up of Getafix). It's a nice matte finish, with embossing on the title and drop of potion.

[Aclea]

RIP Albert Uderzo.

[vertigop1ayer]

I wish they'd bring the series to the US. I've been interested in them for years.

[HenriDeadMort]

Originally Posted by Socko

Looks like fun. Too bad the French blu-ray wont feature english subtitles

the one time they didn't surrender

[HenriDeadMort]

Originally Posted by vertigop1ayer

I wish they'd bring the series to the US. I've been interested in them for years.

Personally, the movies suck, all of them.
Except Asterix and the 12 tasks.
(and maybe Asterix & Obelix : Mission Cleopatra but i hate Jamel Debbouze and looking back the movie isn't that great either)

[samuelkhan999]

Originally Posted by Takao

Canadian release is on June 18th:



Like the Canadian release of Mansions, it defaults to French, but it also contains the English dub.

No 4K or 3D because it's Canada lol.

Is the Canadian release region free or Region A&B?

[SilverFox84]

Originally Posted by HenriDeadMort

Personally, the movies suck, all of them.
Except Asterix and the 12 tasks.
(and maybe Asterix & Obelix : Mission Cleopatra but i hate Jamel Debbouze and looking back the movie isn't that great either)

If you're talking about the live-action movies then I agree with you whole-heartedly, but the animated movies are fantastic! easily as good as the comics themselves!

I also love how Asterix - The Secret of the Magic Potion hasn't bent over in this PC/SJW age and all the characters and jokes are in there in all their glory.