Netflix France Touts Slate, $220M Investment In French Production

Netflix today provided a taste of its slate of original French productions coming up in 2022, which includes 25 new titles for launch this year and 20 projects currently in production. The slate, selected and developed by the Netflix France creative team, reps a total investment of more than 200M euros ($221M) across 2022. The streamer recently signed a deal with the French industry in which it committed to producing at least 10 local films per year, investing about 40M euros ($45M).

Among the projects highlighted during a presentation in Paris today was Romain Gavras’ formerly untitled feature, which is now called Athena. An immersive and modern tragedy, it stars Dali Benssalah, Sami Slimane, Anthony Bajon and is co-written with Oscar nominee Ladj Ly (Les Misérables) and Elias Belkeddar. The logline reads: In the space of a few hours following the tragic death of their younger brother in troubling circumstances, the men’s lives will tip over into chaos.

It was also revealed that Guillaume Pierret’s action film Lost Bullet 2 is the second part of what will be a trilogy. Also coming up are action comedy The Takedown, directed by Louis Leterrier and starring Omar Sy and Laurent Lafitte; as well as Dangerous Liaisons, a contemporary teenage adaptation of the eponymous novel.

Images were shown from Call My Agent! creator Fanny Herrero’s upcoming series Standing Up, which goes behind the fictional scenes of the stand-up world and debuts March 18. Also on deck is rap competition series Rhythm + Flow France which will search for new talent in Paris, Marseille and Brussels.

Further projects include Wonderman, a series inspired by late businessman Bernard Tapie which began shooting this week with Laurent Lafitte starring; drama series Notre Dame starring Roschdy Zem and taking place during the night of the devastating fire at the landmark cathedral in 2019; documentary series Johnny Hallyday: Beyond Rock, which sees the artist tell his own story through decades of unpublished archives; a doc about former Renault Chairman Carlos Ghosn who was arrested in and then escaped from Japan; En Place, a comedy series co-created by Jean-Pascal Zadi and François Uzan, and Le Roi Des Ombres, directed by Marc Fouchard, based on an original idea by Kaaris and drawing inspiration from an ancestral African legend that’s transposed onto today’s France.

Damien Couvreur, Vice-President Series France said, “We are proud of bringing new stories to life and reflecting the diversity of French creation in all the 25 productions, in all their variety, being released this year on Netflix.”