Netflix has brought together the “Avengers” of French action cinema – director Julien Leclercq and actors Alban Lenoir and Franck Gastambide, all subscribers to the success on the streaming platform – for its new blockbuster.
Available in 192 countries starting this Friday, March 29, this action thriller inspired by the film The wages of fear by Henri-Georges Clouzot aims to break audience records for French cinema on the platform.
For The wages of fearWhere a strike team has less than 24 hours to transport two trucks full of explosives through a hostile region and avoid a terrible catastrophe, Julien Leclercq was able to call on exceptional resources.
“My ambition was to make a French film for Netflix that would shine throughout the world,” Julien Leclercq, whose previous films, Earth and blood AND SentinelHe climbed to the top of the platform.
“We grew up with the same American films and we dreamed of doing the same with our language and our media,” he adds. “I’m first and foremost a viewer. I try to please myself. I ask myself what I want to see on the platform.”
“It is not a niche cinema”
The film, the director specifies, is not a remake of Wage of fear by Henri-Georges Clouzot, who won the Palme d’or in 1953. “Je n’aurais never eu l’idée ni la pretention de faire un copier-coller en couleur d’un film déjà fait”, assure-t- He.
“It’s a reboot: we take the original idea, develop new characters and give the story a new impetus,” he explains before adding: “We don’t tell stories the same way we did 70 years ago.”
“I don’t make niche films,” he alleges. “I know that 0.2% of the film’s future viewers will have seen the original. What interested me was to tell this story to new generations and anchor it in the reality of 2024.”
Filming in Morocco was especially hard. “We were up against nature. We had to adapt. There was a certain pressure every day of filming and the desert conditions, with the dust, were annoying,” laughs Julien Leclercq.
The cast gets their shirt wet
In addition to Alban Lenoir and Franck Gastambide, the cast includes Sofiane Zermani and Ana Girardot. “There was no specification from Netflix,” says Julien Leclercq. “I was just wondering who was credible behind the wheel of a truck.”
The actors were responsible for “almost” all of their stunts. “They had different resumes and experiences, but they got to work and learned how to drive the trucks,” says the director:
“They trained for several days on the airport tarmac. They had never learned in their lives. Ana Girardot, who really wanted to make action movies, got behind the wheel of a Porsche Cayenne and impressed everyone.”
“For a director, it’s great to know that his actors can hold the steering wheel while they play,” rejoices this figure of French action cinema. “That means we’ll be able to get close to the camera and make people believe it’s true.”
A genre that is exported
This action film made in France, twenty years after the success of Luc Besson’s productions, finds a new life thanks to Netflix: “It is a genre that is exported and shines all over the world,” agrees Julien Leclercq.
“Netflix manages to re-emerge new directors and actors who do not necessarily have the resume to do action but who want to try,” continues the director, who intends to continue in this line.
“We are developing a big action series for Netflix,” he reveals. “We will announce the theme, the title and the casting in due course, within a few weeks. It will be quite ambitious. That’s the good thing about this studio: we look for ambition.”
Source: BFM TV
