Return to Silent Hill on Canal Plus: why Christophe Gans took 12 years to return

But where was the director of Pact of Wolves and Beauty and the Beast? The filmmaker tells Première why it took him so long to return to cinemas.

A few months after his appearance in the cinema, Return to silent Hill arrives on Canal Plus. Christophe Gans’ film can be streamed on MyCanal until November 22. The director confided in Firstlast February. Excerpts:

More than his Return to Silent HillFrench director Christophe Gans makes his return to cinema today. A long-awaited comeback for the filmmaker, twelve years after the release of Beauty and the Beasthis latest feature film, directed by Léa Seydoux and Vincent Cassel (in February 2014).

Now aged 65 and despite his status in the global industry, Christophe Gans has only directed five feature films – including the legendary Wolf Pact (2001) and the essential first part of silent Hill (2006). Twenty years later, he reopens the doors of the cursed city with a sequel directly inspired by the video game Silent Hill 2. At the same time a question floats like a stubborn fog: how to make up for lost time?

“Obviously, I’m thinking about it”the director tells us in the columns of the new First (number 570, currently on newsstands and on the online store), evoking these 12 years since his previous film was released. He explains:

“I have always had a lot of projects and I have never stopped working. I have written scripts and prepared films, but the cinema that I want to make is very atypical, very complicated. And often, you have to wait for the stars to align. What I call the stars are, for example, the desire of a producer, the desire of financiers and the availability of a casting…”