Daniel Auteuil is planning a series of three new films based on Marcel Pagnol’s plays Marius, Fanny and Cesar.

Auteuil will reunite with producers Alain Sarde (AS Films) and Jerome Seydoux (Pathe), who also worked on his directorial debut, The Well Digger’s Daughter (La Fille du Puisatier). That film, which Pathe releases theatrically in France on April 20, is also a Pagnol adaptation.

The three stories are known as the Fanny trilogy or the Marseille trilogy, were originally brought to screen in the 1930s by Pagnol. The stories are about a group of friends in Marseille, including a comedic bar owner, Raimu.

Auteuil will direct the first two films starting in spring 2012.

Pagnol is Provence’s most famous writer, having written the novels Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources that went on to become smash hits for director Claude Berri in the 1980s. Of course, Auteuil himself got found international acclaim playing Ugolin in those films.

The Well-Digger’s Daughter was first made as a film by Pagnol himself in 1940. The new version stars Astrid Bergès-Frisbey (Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) as a young woman whose pilot boyfriend leaves her behind, pregnant, when he goes to fight in the war. Auteuil himself also appears as the Well Digger, and the cast also features Kad Merad, Sabine Azéma and Jean-Pierre Darroussin.

As an actor, Auteuil’s films also include Hidden (Cache), The Valet, Queen Margot,36 Quai des Orfèvres and La personne aux deux personnes.

Topics