Philippe Lacheau’s French box office hit Alibi.com 2 has inked multiple international sales through Newen Connect as the film continues its theatrical reign at home.
Newen has sold the comedy sequel to 2017’s Alibi.com across Europe including ZDF for German-speaking territories, Flins & Piniculas in Spain, Eagle Pictures in Italy, Lusomundo in Portugal and Estin Film for the Baltic States. The film is also headed to Shoval in Israel, Red Apollo in China, New Select in Japan and Skeye Inflight & Air France.
The deals complement Newen’s previous sales to TVA in Canada, CDC International for Latin America, Prorom for Eastern Europe, Les Films26 for French-speaking Africa, Megarama in Morocco, Spentzos in Greece, Pathe in Switzerland, Liberty Production in Benelux, Monolith in Poland and Blitz in former Yugoslavia.
The original Alibi.com sold to more than 50 territories and Newen’s head of film sales Alice Damiani estimates a similar run for the sequel, and says there are “serious discussions” in the works for a US remake.
The Studiocanal title released on February 8 in France, is currently in the top three films of the year in the country with 4.27 million tickets sold ($32 million). Made for €18.4 million, the film is closely trailing Pathé’s Asterix & Obelisk: The Middle Kingdom (4.59 million admissions) and Super Mario Bros. (5.89 million admissions).
The film is ahead of Pathé’s megabudget two-part epic The Three Musketeers - d’Artagnanan, Creed III (Warner Bros.), Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (Disney) and Babylon (Paramount) and still going strong after more than one month in theatres.
It has already surpassed the success of the original Alibi.com, made for just €7.5 million, which sold 3.58 million tickets during its 2017 run.
Alibi.com 2 is written and directed by Lacheau who also stars in the film opposite Elodie Fontan, Julien Arruti and Tarek Boudali in addition to an A-list local ensemble cast including Nathalie Baye, Gerard Jugnot, Arielle Dombasle and Didier Bourdon.
The original film follows a startup that churns out alibis to hide clients’ secret lives and part deux follows the main character after he closes his agency and promises he will never lie again only to accumulate the antics once again when he must hide his divorce-embattled criminal father and erotic film star mother from his fiancée as the wedding approaches.
Christophe Cervoni produces through his Axel films alongside Lacheau’s BAF Prod and Marc Fiszman with Studiocanal, TF1 Films Production and TF1 Studio on board as co-producers.
Lacheau is having a banner year complete with his local-language unscripted original series for Prime Video LOL: Qui rit, Sort that has rallied some of the country’s top celebrities, among them Virginie Efira, Jonathan Cohen, Leila Bekhti and Pierre Niney, and was the streamer’s biggest launch to date.
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