Trivia / Les Visiteurs

• Acting for Two: Several characters' descendants/ancestors are played by the same actors and actresses (see the Identical Grandson entry for the complete list). Christian Clavier really takes the cake, as he acts for four in The Corridors of Time.
• Box Office Bomb: In France, 5 million cinema admissions were needed for Bastille Day to start being profitable. It sold only slightly above 2 million tickets and didn't crack the top 20 grossers of that year (contrast the first film, which thoroughly dominated 1993 with 14 million admissions, and the first sequel, which placed third in 1998 with 8 million admissions behind Titanic and The Dinner Game).
• California Doubling:
  • Godefroy's castle is supposed to be situated in Montmirail, in Northern France. The close-ups were filmed at the fortified city of Carcassonne, in Languedoc-Roussillon (Southern France).
  • Similarly, the castle of Beynac, in Dordogne (South-Western France) was used as Godefroy's castle in The Corridors of Time despite the obvious differences with Carcassonne and Northern France.
  • Bastille Day has scene set in 18th century Paris, but these were actually filmed in Prague, Czech Republic. Christian Clavier said "Prague retained a '18th century Paris look' more than modern Paris does".
• Dawson Casting:
  • Valérie Lemercier was 29 and played the daughter of a duke on her wedding day in Middle Ages. Medieval girls used to get married when they were much younger and had children well before they hit their twenties. Unless she's a widow.
  • In Bastille Day, the 45 years old Sylvie Testud plays Charlotte Robespierre (who was 33 in 1793) and 53 years old Nicolas Vaude plays a 34 years old Maximilien Robespierre.
• Deleted Scenes: The Corridors of Time has 17 minutes worth of deleted scenes. See here.
• Development Hell: Director Jean-Marie Poiré made plans for a fourth film, but the critical and box office disappointment of the third (and perhaps the age of the main actors) have prevented it from being made so far.
• Fake Nationality: Belgian actor Patrick Descamps as the French king Louis VI the Fat in Bastille Day.
• Irony as She Is Cast: Christian Bujeau (Jean-Pierre Goulard) is completely helpess when getting stuck in Middle Ages in The Corridors of Time. He is an expert in medieval fencing in Real Life, which wound up amusingly paralleling his later role as the Weaponmaster in Kaamelott.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Frénégonde and Béatrice were played by Valérie Lemercier in the first film. She didn't like the sequel's script and refused to reprise the roles, so Muriel Robin replaced her.
  • Didier Pain played King Louis VI the Fat in the first film. Patrick Descamps played him in Bastille Day.
• Production Posse:
  • Besides Les Visiteurs, Christian Clavier worked with director Jean-Marie Poiré in Le Père Noël est une ordure (Santa Claus Is a Stinker), Gramps Is in the Resistance, Twist again in Moscow, Mes Meilleurs copains (My Best Pals), L'Opération Corned-Beef and Guardian Angels.
  • Christian Clavier and Marie-Anne Chazel were married and appeared in the Splendid theatre troupe's films such as Santa Claus is a Stinker and French Fried Vacation.
  • Besides Les Visiteurs and its remake, Christian Clavier and Jean Reno were paired in L'Opération Corned Beef and The Corsican Investigation. Valérie Lemercier was also in L'Opération Corned Beef.
  • For Bastille Day, Christian Clavier personally decided to cast several actors who appeared alongside him in the Qu'est-ce qu'on a fait au Bon Dieu? (Serial (Bad) Weddings) film series, namely Ary Abittan, Pascal N'Zonzi and Frédérique Bel.
  • More surprisingly, the three main actors of this film (Jean Reno, Christian Clavier, Valérie Lemercier) voice the three main animal characters in the French dub of Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey, which came out in France a few months after Les Visiteurs (with Christian Clavier being credited as "anonymous").
• Real-Life Relative: Christian Clavier (Jacquouille/Jacquart) and Marie-Anne Chazel (Ginette) were married for 10 years when the first film came out (they have divorced since).
• Role Reprise: Jean Reno and Christian Clavier reprised their role in Bastille Day 18 years after The Corridors of Time.
• Saved from Development Hell: A whopping 18 years Sequel Gap passed between The Corridors of Time and Bastille Day. The failure of the American-French produced remake nearly destroyed Gaumont (the film series' production company, and the oldest film production company in the world) in the early 2000s and was certainly a factor that hindered hopes of a second sequel for a long time.
• Sequel Gap: Bastille Day came out after a whopping 18 years gap to start where The Corridors of Time left off.
• Technology Marches On: The first and second film are slowly shaping up into this as The '90s are getting further and further away. The most blatant outdated things yet are cathode ray tubes televisions, VHS cassettes and Polaroid instant cameras (Béatrice asks Jacquart to take a photo of a portrait in his castle with a Polaroid, then we assume he'd have to mail it to her or she would go there and pick it up — modern cellphones would make it much easier for her to get such a picture in no time).
• Working Title: Bastille Day was initially called La Terreur (The Terror, as in Reign of Terror) before the change was made in late 2015. The original title was even in the first teaser.
• Written by Cast Member: Christian Clavier wrote all the films' screenplays and played Jacquouille and his descendants (and brother).

---