Pathe Guillum Connaught’s live-action film “Asterix and Obelix” will be moved to France rather than China. Starring Swedish footballer Slaton Ibrahimovic.

The film, now titled “Asterix and Obelix, Middle Kingdom”, has a budget of 60 million euros and marks the next installment of the French comic book franchise. The film is being produced by French brands Les Enfants Terrible and Treasure Films.

Path has already hired several buyers for a number of unknown locations, including Netflix, Lyon in Germany, Unicorn for CSI and the Baltics, Blitz for former Yugoslavia, Kinosviet for Poland and Rosebud 21 for Greece. Pathe will be distributed in France and Switzerland.

Filming will begin on April 12 with the star cast. Starring Marion Cotillard, along with Ibrahimovic, Cleopatra, Connaught and Gilles Lloche. Asterix and Obelix will also play, respectively. Also starring Vincent Castle, Jonathan Cohen and Ramsey Bedia.

The new plot of the film is a mystery. Philippe Michelin and Julian Herv wrote the original screenplay and published the edition Albert-Rene, from a collection of comics created by Rene Goskini and Albert Uderso. Connaught collaborated with Mannets and Herv on dialogue and film adaptation.

The “Asterix and Obelix” franchise has had many successes in France. The 2002 section, “Asterix and Obelix: Meet Clopotre”, directed by Alain Chabat, was the most successful to date. All the opus except one were co-produced by Pathe.

The film features the original score of French singer Matthew Chedid. This is the highest budget French film in preparation for 2022.

Canet has already garnered some of France’s best BO hits in recent years. These include the highest grossing French film of 2010, “Little White Lies”, and “We Together”, which sold 2.6 million tickets earlier this year. Loloche has acted in both the films.

In the photo: “Asterix and Obelix face Caesar”.