EXCLUSIVE: Deva Cassel, Julien De Saint Jean and Romain Duris are set to co-star in a contemporary, French-language version of Gaston Leroux’s classic Paris-set novel The Phantom of the Opera, aimed at a young adult audience and taking its cue from the Twilight franchise.
SND, the film production, distribution and sales arm of French commercial free-to-air broadcaster M6, is co-producing and selling the ambitious project and will launch pre-sales at the EFM with a sizzle.
Alexandre Castagnetti (Stand by Love, Tamara and A New Girl In Paris) is set to direct from a screenplay co-written with Camille Fontaine ( Coco Before Chanel).
Opéra Garnier
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Filming will begin this summer at the world famous Palais Garnier opera house, or Opéra Garnier, in Paris, against the backdrop of its theatre, backstage areas, domed roof and subterranean vaulted cistern, sometimes referred to as its lake.
The production has also gathered a high-profile crew topped by cinematographer Nicolas Bolduc (The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers 1 & 2), production designer Clovis Weill (Marie Antoinette, Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, A Breath Away), composer Dany Levy (I Lost My Body, Raw) and choreographer Marion Motin (The Substance, The last Call, Christine and the Queens, Stromae)
Leroux’s original 1910 novel tells the story of a beautiful young soprano who becomes the obsession of a disfigured man living in the watery subterranean labyrinth under the Opéra Garnier but resists his advances.
In Castagnetti’s contemporary adaptation, Cassel will star as 18 year old Anastasia, who is newly-arrived in Paris and full of hopes and dreams as she takes up a position as a ballet dancer at the opera house.
Ambitious artistic director, James Figueras (Duris), is reviving Orpheus, the mythic opera by Ernest Dupré, inspired by the Greek mythological figure of Orpheus and his journey into the underworld in search of his dead wife Euridice.
One night, Anastasia meets the opera house’s mythical phantom (Saint Jean) and they embark on an impossible love story. Meanwhile the prima ballerina, meant for the role of Euridice, barely escapes death and Anastasia lands the star role.
“It’s a modern re-reading of Gaston Leroux’s classic novel, which has inspired movies, series, graphic novels and musicals but amazingly has never been adapted as a French-language feature film,” said SND Director of International Sales and Distribution Ramy Nahas.
“The film will mix themes and genres to create an ambitious romantic film set against the backdrop of Paris, with fantasy, period and thriller elements,” he continued.
Nahas added that the $20M production’s tone and genre-mixing style takes inspiration from the Twilight movies, which SND released theatrically in France with success.
Emerging French-Italian actress and model Cassel made her big screen debut in Italian drama The Beautiful Summer and is soon to be seen in Netflix’s upcoming big-budget The Leopard reboot.
Saint Jean recently appeared alongside Pierre Niney in French-language swashbuckler hit The Count Of Monte Cristo, in the role of Edmond Dantès’ protégé Andréa, who tragically seeks vengeance on the father who tried to kill him as child.
Established and popular actor Duris was seen most recently in A Missing Part, The Three Musketeers: Milady and The Animal Kingdom.
They will be joined on set by members of the Opéra Garnier ballet company including its principal dancer Dorothée Gilbert, who will play the prima donna dancer in the film, Victoire Bellanger.
SND is co-producing with Paris and L.A.-based production company FullDawa (Riddle of Fire, Uncorked), which has previously produced fiction films and documentaries set against the backdrop of the Opéra Garnier such as the 2020 Arte non-fiction work Building The Paris Opera.
