French cinema is claiming one of its greatest ever global box-office successes – Paddington Bear.
You may have thought that the bear in the hat came from “darkest Peru”, not darkest Paris. Cinematically speaking you would have been wrong.
The Paddington movie, part-animated, part-live action, was made in Britain with mostly British actors. But it was entirely financed by Studiocanal, an ambitious French film studio. After the movie’s global triumph – 25 million tickets sold worldwide; $200m (£132m) of box office already; the second most popular film in the US last weekend – Studiocanal believes that it can become the European equivalent of Disney or Pixar.
Its next two productions are also based on British stories – Robinson Crusoe and Wallace and Gromit.
Studiocanal is a wholly owned subsidiary of the successful French cable TV company Canal Plus. Its president Olivier Courson says that a Paddington sequel is under consideration. “No family film made by a non-American studio has ever been such a box-office success,” he said.
One wonders whether a French company would have been so keen on Paddington if he had been named after another London railway station beginning with a W. Come to think of it, that hat looks rather familiar...
One of the Emperor Napoleon’s beaver felt hats was sold at auction recently in Paris. It looked suspiciously like something that Paddington would wear. Along with his, er, wellingtons.
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