Why Lucky Luke gets little traction in the new Disney+ series
“With Luke, we have the same problem as when we make a film with Obelix…” Explanations.
The most famous lonesome cowboy is entitled to a new live-action adaptation on Disney+. And this time, it’s a real western. With a lot of humor and some colorful characters, but a Lucky Luke which is played at face value, carefully avoiding the pitfall of parody.
“It’s a Lucky Luke that we’re not used to seeing,” confirms for Première Alban Lenoir, who plays the solitary hero. “Because he faces problems and choices that he never had to face in the albums that we devoured during our childhood. There is a real bias that I really liked.”
More taciturn. Almost dark. This Lucky Luke always shoots faster than his shadow. But in the first episode, we discover that he is seriously injured in his right hand. And so he can no longer draw! A big narrative twist explained to us by co-creators Thomas Mansuy and Mathieu Leblanc:
“When we take on a character like Lucky Luke, we have the same problem as when we make a film with Obelix: he has a superpower which could allow him to resolve all situations in less than half a second. So we had to find a solution. We had to be able to prevent Luke from shooting, to allow the suspense to exist and also for the characters around to have a place.”
An assumed choice, to add drama to the series. “In almost every episode, we asked ourselves the question: how are we going to stop him from shooting?”
But in order not to frustrate the viewer too much, we still had to let Luke do his show: “At the same time, we knew that in each episode, we had to include a ‘lucky-lukerie’! A moment of magic. Like a reward. If he shoots just once, it has to be in a way that stands out!”
It’s also a way for the Disney+ series to distinguish itself from previous versions of the cowboy, from Terence Hill to Jean Dujardin: “We didn’t want to redo what had already been done. We wanted to think outside the box,” continues Alban Lenoir.
The two creators wanted to fully embrace their desire for westerns. And to do this, we had to leave Luke’s colt in its holster:
“It’s a step aside. We’re giving a more realistic dimension to Lucky Luke… even if the comic is not at all. We wanted it to feel like the Wild West. That there was this idea of life and death. We wanted a serious veneer and not be parody or cartoonish.”
Lucky Luke, currently available on Disney+.
