‘It Was a Race Against Time’: Go Behind the Scenes of the Cat’s Eyes Adaptation

On Tuesday 10 July, behind the broadcast of the Euro football semi-finals, TF1 presented the highly anticipated first trailer for Cat’s Eyes, its new event feature film directed by Camille Lou, Constance Labbé and Claire Roman.

Scheduled to air on the channel next fall, the eight-episode series follows the adventures of Tami, Celia and Alexia, three sisters who disguise themselves as thieves to steal their father’s artwork after he died in a fire. Art gallery.

At the Japan Expo last weekend, screenwriter Michel Katz, director Alexandre Laurent, as well as producers Benjamin Dupont-Jubien and Mehdi Sabar gave the public a behind-the-scenes look at the genesis of the live-action version of Cat’s Eyes.

A project that took a long time to complete

Benjamin Dupont-Jouben and Mehdi Sabari have been working on this adaptation of Cat’s Eyes with Michel Cat for seven years. In 2018, they met for the first time with the teams of Tsukasa Hojo, the creator of the animated series.

“It was quite long– Mehdi Sabar recalled.A five-year discussion took place. We had to make sure we could make a series worthy of Tsukasa Hojo’s work. There was a lot of discussion about the visual world.”

The producer also pulled out all the stops for the cat-eye shots. The Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Palace of Versailles… all the most emblematic places of the capital will be highlighted by the works of Alexandre Laurent.

And according to the producers, they didn’t want to just adapt Tsukasa Hojo’s work. “It was important for him to trust the team that would take over his work. We gave him proof and he agreed to let us.“

And the influence of cat’s eyes should not stop only at the French border. “We went to TF1 to find out if they were interested. Prime also followed us. It is quite an expensive series with international distribution“, Mehdi Sabar also revealed.We have managed to bring in other partners who will broadcast the series to the rest of the world..”

Tsukasa Hojo directed the scripts

Like Philip Lachaux’s adaptation of Niki Larson, Tsukasa Hojo oversaw the writing of the Cat’s Eyes scripts and was careful to set some rules for the writers. “For him, they are art thieves, not criminals“, screenwriter Michel Katz confides.

“Tsukasa Hojō also claimed that they respected the works (which were stolen) and that they had knowledge of the art. He also wished Quentin had taken a long time to suspect Tam.”

The author also tried to give more depth to the characters. “Each character has his own life, romance, except theft. We’re reinventing things so that we get the end of season 1 to the beginning of the animated season– added Michel Katz.

Also added is a new villain named Prudence, played by Elodie Fontaine.Creating new challenges. We didn’t want to copy and paste. We have also set up a police station. There will be surprises.“

tiring shot

Filming the live version of Cat’s Eyes required many hours of night work. “It was the most tiring shoot of my career.“, revealed director Alexandre Laurent, who previously worked on Le Bazar de la Charité and Les Combattantes.We shot a lot at night.”

Another challenge: the 2024 Paris Games, which forced production to speed up filming. “Untitled gallery– explained Benjamin Dupont-Jubien.We wanted to start late. It was a race against time. It would take us another three months, but we did it.”

However, TF1 viewers will have to wait to discover the Cat’s Eyes episodes as the series airs on the channel next fall. Wait, you can find the manga Signé Cat’s Eyes for free on the TF1+ platform.