12 Million Funny French: Is this Saga de Funes getting ready for a new film adaptation?

For 20 years Fantômas has been trying to find a new way to cinemas. After winning the trilogy with Louis de Funes in the 1960s, several filmmakers tried to recreate the famous criminal genius imagined by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Alain in 1910.

Thus, Frédéric Forestier and Christophe Gans broke their teeth trying to bring one of the most iconic characters of French literature to the screen. That’s why we ran away from the duo Jose Garcia – Jean Renault, who arrived in 2003 to embody the main characters of the Forestier project.

Will the Fantômas curse be lifted this time? In August 2022, we learned that Wassim Beji, who produced Black Box with Pierre Nini, had acquired (via SND) the rights to adapt the detective novels.

The film and the series are ready! Wasim Bej describes the project as “Returning to the dark roots of the Fantomas character.” With Martin Bourboulon’s diptych The Three Musketeers, this feature film has to be one of the most ambitious in French cinema.

The character of Fantôme has been the subject of many film adaptations, including those by Louis Feylad in 1913, Paul Pechot in 1932 or even André Hünebel in 1964. This last version – the most famous – depicted the hunt without mercy. The mysterious and elusive criminal with different identities, Commissioner Juve (Louis de Funes) and journalist Fandor (Jean Marais).

The trilogy gathered more than 12 million viewers in theaters. Along with Arsene Lupin, Fantômas is undoubtedly one of France’s most popular fictional characters. Will this project finally see the light of day?

After some time, the answer with the announcement of the director or directors and a new duo that will embody Juve and his nemesis, the great criminal genius Fantômas. Who would you see in the roles? I’ll let you consider that. In the meantime, we’ve selected some candidates for you to consider in the costume of these iconic heroes!