Visitors: 5 things you don’t know about cult comedy

A handful of anecdotes told by Christian Clavier and Jean-Marie Poiré …

You have already seen Visitors ?

The film returns this evening in (umpteenth) replay on TF1. And here are 5 anecdotes on the film, gleaned during the screening that we had organized as part of the first Cinema Club, almost ten years ago.

In 2016, on the occasion of the release visitors: the revolution, First organized a projection of Visitors at the Fauvettes in Paris. On this occasion, Christian Clavier And Jean-Marie Poiré came to meet spectators, to Tell fun anecdotes on their big success of 1993 (13.7 million admissions). So what did they reveal?

1. Tom Cruise loves Visitors

The director of the comedy was very proud to explain that in 1993, Tom Cruise told him he was a fan of Visitors for its mixture of genres. “He found that in Hollywood, the producers did not take enough risks, while we dared to mix comedy, history, action … and even fantastic”. “It’s true that visitors were a weird filmadded keyboard. Writing a family adventure in old French, it had to be done! We fought, it was complicated to climb. We were told that it would not work. And finally… ”.

2. Its success was made over time

“You never know what will work, Continue keyboard, which recalls that he had successes but also big failures. The case of visitors is special because if it has started well (around 500,000 admissions in one week, editor’s note), Its attendance continued to increase later. It’s rare! And it proves that the ears mouth was important “. Indeed, the film then reached 700,000 admissions per week, for more than a month.

3. More than a success, a phenomenon

“Do you know how we realized that it was becoming a phenomenon?” To skiing, Has Hired. We were going down a track and there two kids doubled by screaming: ‘It’s Okaaaay’. Rebelote a few minutes later with other children. We wondered, ‘Do you think it’s our’ Okaaay ‘? (Laughs) And yes, it was ours. »»

4. Closer to Don Quixote what Back to the future

“I like the story with a big h, but when it is not boring, explains the director. As in the novels of Alexandre Dumas. On visitors, I particularly appreciated the idea of putting fiction in history. This was the starting point, as well as the idea of showing the master/slave class relationships. “” I had black on white writing that Jean does not use his right of life or death on me “the keyboard then laughing. “Joking aside, it was this cleavage that made us want to write the film. I was looking for a subject for Jean Reno, which I found very chic. He had to play his role in the first degree, and with Christian, it worked well, just for a major question: as he is bigger than him, he did not meet his gaze ”. ” I confirmreplied keyboard. He spends the whole film watching above me while I wear the luggage (laughs). »« We also wanted to answer the question: ‘What does it mean to meet his grand-grand-grand-parents?’concludes Poiré. But with an in addition social aspect. We have never thought of returning to the future by writing, rather of Don Quixote ”.

5. The sketch that started everything for Valérie Lemercier

“I knew that Valérie Lemercier would be perfect in Béa, Ensures Poiré, because I liked a lot Its renateri sketch. She already expressed herself there as her character, accentuating her ‘Marie-Chantal’ side. She was very snub and at the same time capable of swinging enormities. In the sketch, she exclaimed, for example, between two bourgeois allusions: ‘we found lots of cousins lost from the side of mom, who have huge dicks!’. It was exactly this mid-transitional tone, mid-vulgarian that I was looking for ”. The director saw right: a few months after the success of Visitors In the cinema, Valérie Lemercier received the César for the best actress in a supporting role for her interpretation of the “Petite-Petite-Petite-Petite-Petite Fillotte” de Godefroy.

The trailer of Visitors ::

Visitors: why Valérie Lemercier and Muriel Robin lived the shoots badly