All I know of are district 13 and Leon the professional. Seems like they have an abundance of actors. Are these people just out of work 99% of the time?
shareJean-Paul Belmondo got too old.
shareI would guess that it's hard to compete with Hollywood's extravagant budgets.
shareI also suspect that they only have a few qualified creatives for these kinds of films.
Of the three films that have been mentioned (d'Adele Blanc-Sec, District B-13 and The Professional), Luc Besson was involved with all of them. The man can only make so many movies!
I'm sure you're also correct that budgetary concerns pose a problem as well, though that wouldn't keep French studios from making lower-budgeted action films.
extravagant budgets are not neccassary
shareTo make a spectacle with fireworks and explosions, it usually is.
And that's what many people like...
Godzilla Minus One, which is out right now and is an amazing movie, had a reported $15 million budget.
share15 million is not that cheap, for European projects...
Average cost in Europe for a movie is a little bit over 2m EUR (https://www.obs.coe.int/en/web/observatoire/2023-press-releases/-/asset_publisher/0t9kVBabnI8V/content/average-budget-of-european-fiction-films-in-2020-was-eur-2.06-million). In US this would be ultra low budget (https://americanfilmmarket.com/types-3m-10m-films-break/). The average Hollywood Movie costs 65 Million USD (https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0611/why-movies-cost-so-much-to-make.aspx) while non-english movie productions from Europe gets topped by French Asterix movies (https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Asterix#tab=summary). Even with English speaking I only could find Cloud Atlas at 100m (https://cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/205796/). The super recent Three Musketeers clocks in with roughly 72m (https://madame.lefigaro.fr/celebrites/cinema/cassel-duris-marmai-civil-les-confidences-du-quatuor-star-des-trois-mousquetaires-20230316).
shareIf a studio can't put $15 million together then there may not be much hope for quality action movies. I mean, that's like the catering budget of a Marvel movie.
share