In the cinema, on television, on our tablets… Animated films have conquered all our screens. Cororico: behind many blockbusters, French studios are triumphant. How did the sector conquer the world? L’Express returns in three episodes to the success of this industry made in France.
Episode 1 – From “Miraculous” to “Super Mario”: how French animation cinema conquered the planet
At each window, thick blinds block access to the rays of the early summer sun. In a semi-darkness challenged here and there by shy table lamps, silence reigns… and the magic happens. Over the screens, the hair of a character comes alive. Further on, the framework of a 3D decor emerges. Employees with chubby features and easy jokes play the masters of this digital ballet, their helmets screwed to their ears, barely visible behind shelves overflowing with manga and figurines from their favorite imaginations. From this den buzzing with clicks will soon be released the second season of an animated series of all records: Arcane.
Inspired by the famous video game League of Legends developed and published by Riot Games, this creation for young adults traces the fate of sisters Jinx and Vi, in the fictional and brutally unequal world of Runeterra. In China, the first installment totaled 130 million views a few hours after its release on the local platform of Tencent in November 2021. After a handful of days, it became Netflix’s number one opus through 52 countries. Nominated in five categories in 2022 at the US Emmy Awards, Arcane won four awards, including Best Animation Program. This is the first time that a series broadcast on a streaming platform has won such an award.
Advertising at the top of the Netflix rankings
Its budget remains a closely guarded secret. It is presented by Le Figaro as the highest in the world for an animated series, which no one wants to confirm. But what is certain is that it benefits a tricolor studio. Created in 2009, Fortiche is the result of the reunion between three Frenchmen, Pascal Charrue, Jérôme Combe and Arnaud Delord. The world of video games is not unknown to them, the first two have worked there for a long time. But it was from Jérôme Combe’s apartment, and in the production of clips and advertisements, that the studio began to make a name for itself. Produced in 2012 for the French Limousine group, La Gaviota changed the fate of the small business. “This project caught the eye of Christian Linke, the future showrunner [NDLR : directeur de série] ofArcane. He approached us in 2013. We made the first videos around Jinx, remember Pascal Charrue and Jérôme Combe. Then came the day Riot asked us to do a series.”
For the Fortiche of the time, the challenge was colossal. “We were used to making 20-minute clips. The project was to deliver the equivalent of a five-hour film!”, Are still surprised the two leaders. But the pilot delivered by the French arouses the enthusiasm of Riot Games. So much so that the American decides to revise upwards his ambitions for the series. He revises the scenario accordingly and returns to pot. In Paris, recruitments are linked: “We were about thirty at the beginning ofArcane. We had to increase the number of staff by ten”, observes Pascal Charrue. In six years, Fortiche opened two branches in Montpellier and the Canary Islands. In the capital, the company changed premises four times. Today it rents four floors of a new building in the south-east of Paris, from where she delivered her nugget with a singular aesthetic, which is due in particular to the simultaneous use of 2D and 3D.
A hybrid style that Fortiche prides itself on having explored long before American blockbusters, such as the animated adaptation of Spider-Man, and thanks to which the studio wants to continue to assert itself. The second season ofArcane should contribute to it. But its leaders know that they will have to find other sources of growth to cover their backs. “Our teams make the series as they would a feature film. We want to exploit these talents to make films, and develop our own films”, assures Jérôme Combe. All this while continuing to target an audience of teenagers and adults. Targeted by the studio since its inception, adult animation remains a difficult genre to sell, despite a recent influx of projects due to the interest of American platforms for these formats. It will take more to stop Fortiche.