‘They took a really huge slug’: Werewolf game creators fired up by Netflix movie

AlloCiné: How did you end up working with Netflix on this project?

Jose Chavez: This is a project that dates back about four years. Netflix was looking for something special and that would respond to the audience with fairy tales and tall tales like The Beast of Gévaudan. And Les Loups Garous de Thiercelieux is quite close in its theme and obviously its history.

The two authors, Philippe de Pallier and Hervé Marley, were fascinated by Netflix’s approach, which was very respectful of the game, but with very cinematic characters. Director Francois Ouzan really wanted to find something very modern.

So was there real work between the two parties?

There was a real collaboration, yes. Some of our team went on set with the authors who also made a cameo in the film. They got a really big hit: they were transferred to Thiercelieux in a rural setting.

Hervé and Philippe were very excited about this production, where suddenly their performance came alive. Indeed, they passed the glasses, a bit like … Alice in Wonderland!

Werewolves are double in the news, a Netflix movie, and Canal+ game. Where does this renewed interest come from?

The game has been pretty strong for a very long time. He experienced a period of slowdown during his imprisonment. But after that, we felt the need for people to reconnect with each other, and therefore to approach games with very strong narrative potential.

Sales of werewolves continued to rise. If this year is also game-oriented, it’s primarily a happy coincidence of timing. Audiovisual and cinematographic production always takes a long time.

On the canal side, if I’m not mistaken, there was a total of four years of development. For Netflix, it was three years of development, filming and post-production.

Obviously, 2024 is the year of the werewolves.

It is a French film, but broadcast on an international platform that can reach 270 million subscribers worldwide. Is your game successful in international export or are you also counting on Netflix to give you even more exposure?

The Werewolves of Thiercelieux is a game that has been translated into 12 languages. We cover all countries. It is really spread all over the world. The French market represents about a quarter of our sales worldwide.

We are a little over 200,000 toy boxes in France every year, while we are a little under 800,000 every year in the world.

In the case of a board game, we can talk about a French touchThis means that French authors are really recognized, not necessarily for their style, but actually for the richness of their play proposal.

The Netflix movie offers a version of the game with a brilliant wooden board, e.g Jumanji. And do you plan to publish and sell it?

That’s the question that comes up the most, and I’d like to say yes, but that’s the object of the film. So there’s no particular development at this point, that’s really the point of the movie. We had to go for a format that was a bit concrete and take the game to a slightly fantasy story. And this plateau was the cornerstone.

Comments were gathered from José Chavez, Asmodee brand spokesperson in France, on October 22 in Paris.