Taxi on TF1: The accident that turned the production upside down

The first movie “Taxi” was not entirely directed by Gerard Pires! It was director Gerard Krawczyk (Summer on the Soft Slope, soon to be released in cinemas) who replaced him for a few weeks, as he confided to our microphone*.

At the time, Taxi was an action comedy that not everyone knew would become a hit and staple of the 90s. Here’s how Krawczyk ended up on set:

“I’m going on vacation and I get a call from the assistant of “Taxi 1”, who was also the assistant with whom I worked and (…), who tells me: “The film does not start because the director had. A horse riding accident and the film is a disaster, it might not make it’ (…) I told him: ‘Tell Lou that if she needs a hand, I’m here.’

Krawczyk is urgently called and asked to read the script and rush to save the project, except that on the spot, the filmmaker is a little lost:

“In 48 hours I found myself at the wheel of Taxi 1, looking at the sets that I did not understand: “This is part of the chase N°43, but this is the front part of Machin Bank” (…) I got off. At 5am there were cars and stuff everywhere, I was asking people and asking what they were doing!

“I started shooting, I spent a month shooting the first comedy scenes with the actors, so we tracked down the guys. (…) After a month, I left control to the director, whom I went to see every evening at the hospital. And I left him in charge and then we know the success that Taxi 1 had.

After this shooting, success was achieved and producer Luc Besson decided to commission a sequel to the film directed by Sammy Nasser and Frederic Diefenthal:

Luck made me go to Joan of Arc: I had to do it for a week, I don’t remember if I did 3 or 4. (…) I was making plans, it was wonderful. And that’s when he said, “Do you want to do Taxi 2?”

After the credits of Taxi 1 are added to Thank You, Krawczyk will stage Taxi 2, 3 and 4 before leaving the franchise aside and Franck Gastambide signing on for a fifth opus, the last of these lines.

* Interview in Paris by Vincent Formica on June 16, 2023.