France’s Highly Anticipated ‘Asterix: The Secret of the Magic Potion’ Launches Trailer

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

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.