The Visitor from the Future at the cinema: 5 things to know about the SF comedy made in France

Adapted from a web series

Pyramid Productions

Le Visiteur du futur by François Descraques is adapted from the web-series of the same name that he himself wrote and directed. It has 4 seasons and has generated 45 million views, comics, a novel and even a board game. The director recalls:

“It all started in 2009, in my little student room. With my friend Florent Dorin, who plays the Visitor, we wanted to do science fiction. We loved it. We had movies like Back to the Future and Terminator in mind. , but we really didn’t have the means to go with these kinds of ideas.”

Birth of the movie

Pyramid Productions

François Descraques wanted to make this film from the end of season 4 of the web-series. Over the years, the latter has indeed taken on more and more importance: “We knew that we were not going to do season 5, so I closed a lot of intrigues to give myself the possibility of continue the Visitor elsewhere. It was in 2014.”

“It took me almost seven years to find the right way to bring the Visitor to the cinema. We needed a story that would be a continuation of what we had been creating for several seasons and that could at the same time address everyone, while making sense in the feature film format”, confides the director.

A fan movie?

Pyramid Productions

If he of course wanted to satisfy the fans of the series, François Descraques did not want to make a fan film. Instead, he sought to find a balance, adopting another point of view and reversing the rules a bit. He specifies :

“I believe that the film thus speaks both to fans and to people who are discovering the universe. There are winks, details that are directly there to “reward” those who have followed the whole series. But the film puts everyone on the same level, very quickly.”

SF, comedy and drama

Pyramid Productions

Florent Dorin, who embodies the hero of the web-series, resumes his role for the needs of the feature film. He explains: “I think what I really like about him is that, precisely, we will never really know who he is. I really like the idea that he is both a superhero and a completely unstable and disturbing guy.”

“He always wants to do the best but clearly lacks wisdom and clairvoyance. And above all, he has a very misplaced ego, which is inevitably very funny and touching. The character was born at first as a gag. And then, little little by little, we had to give it more consistency, more stakes.”

A “need to get by”

Pyramid Productions

During the writing, the producers of François Descraques said to him: “Don’t set yourself a limit. Don’t think about the money. Write the film as if you had twelve million”. Despite this, the filmmaker still had to adapt to a limited budget of 4 million euros and be a bit resourceful. He remembers :

“All the web and TV experience was very useful to me at that time. Whether writing or directing, I always had to adapt and find ways to bring what I wanted to life. I imagined. And that’s thanks to my team. We’ve worked together for years and we’ve learned to get along together.”

The design of the First World War scene testifies to this “spirit of resourcefulness”: in the latter, 20 extras had to run in a loop to give the impression that there are hundreds of them. Among them, only two were stuntmen and had the heavy task of simulating dozens of falls!