Why France Is Making Les Mis Again and Why This Time Feels Different

The French are betting audiences want their epics back.

For much of the 1980s and ’90s, France regularly mounted sprawling prestige productions on a scale few European industries could match. Films like Jean-Paul Rappeneau’s Cyrano de Bergerac (1990), Claude Berri’s Germinal (1993), or Patrice Chéreau’s Queen Margot (1994). But as production costs rose and financing grew more risk-averse, those ambitious historical spectacles gradually disappeared from the big screen, replaced by smaller auteur dramas, comedies and internationally portable genre films.

Now, after years in retreat, large-scale French period storytelling is mounting a comeback. Studiocanal parent Canal+ has found global audiences for glossy historical series such as Versailles and Marie Antoinette, while Martin Bourboulon’s two-part The Three Musketeers adaptation and Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de la Patellière’s The Count of Monte Cristo demonstrated there was still an appetite, at least in France, for muscular literary adventure made on a blockbuster scale. This year in Cannes, Antonin Baudry’s De Gaulle: Tilting Iron, the first in an epic two-part biopic on the iconic French leader, premieres out of competition, another sign of renewed confidence in prestige French popular cinema.

Into that landscape comes Fred Cavayé’s Les Misérables, a new action-skewed adaptation of Victor Hugo’s classic about crime, justice and redemption, starring Vincent Lindon as Jean Valjean and Tahar Rahim as the relentless Inspector Javert. The film reframes Hugo’s novel — adapted dozens of times throughout the decades but probably best known to modern audiences from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical and Tom Hooper’s 2012 film adaptation — as a propulsive chase thriller. Alongside Lindon and Rahim, and veteran actors Camille Cottin and Benjamin Lavernhe, the film boasts a supporting cast of 20- and 30-something up-and-comers, including Noémie Merlant (Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Tár), Megan Northam (Rabia), Vassili Schneider (The Count of Monte Cristo), Marie Colomb (The Beasts), and Louis Peres (The Sentinels).

The 40 million euro ($47 million) production was put together independently by Richard Grandpierre at Eskwad (The Tuche franchise, Brotherhood of the Wolf) and Olivier Delbosc at Curiosa Films (8 Women, The Wizard of the Kremlin) with backing from Canal+/ Studiocanal, which is releasing the film theatrically across its global footprint and handling worldwide sales at the Cannes film market. Additional funding came from TF1 and Netflix in France.

In an exclusive interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Grandpierre and Delbosc discuss the high-stakes gamble behind reviving the grand French popular epic, why they believed audiences were ready for another Les Misérables, and why Victor Hugo’s 19th century classic still feels politically explosive today.

Why make yet another version of Les Misérables?

Richard Grandpierre We were expecting this question. You’re absolutely right. I can speak for myself, but I’m sure Olivier agrees — in the lifetime of a producer, we all dream of doing something like The Three Musketeers, Monte Cristo, the major productions, the major books in French literature.

But I think what really prompted us to do this movie was our meeting with Fred Cavayé, the director, and hearing him talk about his idea. And the other reason is that for 35 years, nobody had done a version of Les Misérables in France. The last time was with Lino Ventura as Jean Valjean [in 1982, directed by Robert Hossein]. An entire generation has not experienced watching it onscreen. If you take people under 30, I’m sure most of them haven’t read Les Misérables. They only know it through [Hooper’s 2012] musical.

The difference with Fred Cavayé’s vision is that the characters are young. Before, it was just [middle-aged]. We’ve brought in a whole new universe of younger characters, the youth in Victor Hugo’s story, people 15- to 20-year-olds can identify with.

Olivier Delbosc We were very quickly convinced that Victor Hugo’s story is completely timeless. It’s a story of inequality and social misery that unfortunately is still very contemporary.

Grandpierre The strength of the movie comes from the fact that it resonates in today’s world and in today’s life. You’ve probably heard about the Yellow Vest movement a few years ago, where people went into the streets to protest and demonstrate. It’s the same thing as the barricades Victor Hugo described in the 19th century, when people couldn’t afford bread.

If you watch the news, unfortunately it’s exactly the same topics that Victor Hugo’s brought up in his book.

How does Fred Cavayé’s approach make this adaptation distinct?

Delbosc He has done a lot of thrillers and action movies, and he’s using those techniques to create tension. That is what brings modernity to Victor Hugo’s masterpiece.

We have big films about Charles de Gaulle and the Vichy regime screening in Cannes this year. Why do you think French cinema is returning to large-scale historical and period films at this moment?

Delbosc In the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, French cinema was producing a lot of period films, and that kind of disappeared after the ’80s because they cost a lot of money and take a lot of time to make. Now they are coming back, with a modern twist but with the same themes of social inequality that were described 100 years ago. Because unfortunately history repeats itself and the same problems keep coming back.

Grandpierre I think it’s really the desire of producers to make these kind of movies. Olivier and I are about the same generation, and we grew up with these great, popular French period movies. When we were starting in the industry, we watched Claude Berri’s films [like Jean de Florette (1986), Uranus (1990) and Germinal (1993] and loved them. So we had the desire to make a great popular French movie.

And I could ask you the same question: Why does American cinema continue to make Westerns? Because they speak to the country’s collective history.

Delbosc And audiences around the world love period movies, historical stories, whether in series or cinema.

Do you think historical films allow filmmakers to engage with contemporary political tensions without directly dividing audiences?

Grandpierre That wasn’t our goal, we simply wanted to make a great, popular French movie.

What is true, though, is that there is a resonance between what Victor Hugo wrote in his time and what is happening today. We didn’t look for this political resonance, but it just happens that what Victor Hugo wrote is still current — not only in France, but in other countries as well.

But once the film is released, won’t audiences inevitably interpret it through today’s political climate?

Delbosc That’s the idea of art and cinema: to provide audiences with different ways to read and understand a movie. Victor Hugo, by the way, was not only a great writer, he also became a politician. He fought against the death penalty and for women’s voting rights.

Can you talk about the scale of the production and how difficult it was to finance?

Grandpierre The budget is 40 million euros. The shoot took three months. We had four years of preparation between the casting, finding the stunt people and getting the technical team together.

We had ups and downs with the financing, but what really convinced people to invest was Fred Cavayé wrote a 40-page outline that made them see what the film would be and convinced everyone to take the risk. I’d also add that he had a great co-screenwriter in Victor Hugo.

But it’s a rare experience today in the French system, for independent producers like us to be able to put together such a movie.

Delbosc It’s the biggest French production of last year.

Can you break down the financing structure?

Delbosc It’s a StudioCanal, Canal+, Netflix and TF1 Film Production. Netflix only has French rights. [Canal+ subsidiary] StudioCanal is distributing in eight territories worldwide including France, Germany, Italy and the U.K. and is also handling worldwide sales.

Were you thinking about the international audience while making the film?

Grandpierre When you make a French movie, it’s always complicated to sell into the English-speaking market, because there are very few examples of French movies that work, particularly in America. Usually genre films or smaller art house movies. But thanks to the musical, the English-speaking world knows what Les Misérables is.

What was the single most difficult sequence to shoot?

Delbosc The barricades. That was a three-week shoot in Bordeaux in the middle of a heat wave. It was 40 degrees [107 F], with 300 extras. And I should note, nothing was done with AI. We did it the old-fashioned way. The hot, sweaty, old-fashioned way.

Grandpierre We use VFX in postproduction of course, but no AI. Look at us, we’re obviously old-generation people. We don’t use AI.

Where does the film stand now in postproduction, and what are the release plans?

Grandpierre The film is at the end of the editing process right now. It will be released on October 14 in France. We weren’t ready for Cannes, and StudioCanal, which is selling the movie, will decide whether to show it at a festival before release. 

For younger audiences who mainly know Les Misérables through the musical, what will they discover in your version that feels new?

Grandpierre In France, we have a great asset in Fred Cavayé and Victor Hugo, of course, but we also have an incredible modern cast. All generations can identify with someone in the cast — Vincent Lindon for some people, the younger actors for others: Benjamin Lavernhe, Noémie Merlant, Megan Northam, Vassili Schneider, Louis Peres. It’s one of the best casts we can have in France today. 

As long as you don’t have Russell Crowe singing in it, I’ll be happy.

Grandpierre No, definitely not.