“The great war», one of the most ambitious feature film projects in Europe brought released at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, leads AFM with incredible new graphics for its CG animal cast.

Inspired by the iconic two-part graphic novel “The Beast Is Dead,” written by Edmond-François Calvo during the Nazi occupation of France during World War II and published just after the liberation of Paris, “The Great War” is directed by “Director La Haine Mathieu Kassovitz and produced by the leading French producer Aton Soumachewhose recent credits include the Annecy winner “Little Nicholas – Happy as Can Be” and the Netflix mega-hit “Miraculous: Ladybug & Cat Noir, the Movie.”

Since the original book contains very little narration, Caroline Thompson, Tim Burton’s longtime collaborator and award-winning screenwriter of “Edward Scissorhands” and “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” was recruited to adapt the screenplay. Former president of the Cannes Film Festival and co-founder of Canal+, Pierre Lescure, is the film’s associate producer.

“The Big War” will be shot over five weeks next summer before animators take over producing the film’s characters. The film is expected to be completed in late 2026 or early 2027.

Ahead of this year’s AFM, Kassovitrz and Soumache spoke with Variety to discuss the origins of the project, tell a story the whole family can share and why their ambitions far exceed the film’s eye-catching €30 million budget. They also shared a teaser poster and pre-poster for the project, giving us our first look at the incredible craftsmanship that will go into creating the cast of woodland creatures.

As we can see from today’s artwork, the characters in this film will be fully animated, but everything else will be shot live-action. How do you plan to integrate the images?

Mathieu Kassovitz: Everything will be real. We don’t have many humans in the film, but we have to forget that the animals are animated. I understand your desire to say that it’s an animated film, but you have to understand mine, that it’s not an animated film. Only the characters will be animated, and we tell the artists that these characters should compete for awards. They will break people’s hearts.

Soumache: I want to make a really good hybrid film, but with a real live action feel. We want everything we shoot to be real. So, when we create scenes that would normally need to be animated, like inside a tree for example, we will instead build a set that is inside the tree, then add the puppets CG. We want to use all the best parts of live action and CG animation. We want it to be a real live-action film like Scorsese, Spielberg or Nolan would do, just with animals. So it’s “Saving Private Ryan” and “Paddington”.

Given that the source material for this film is a graphic novel enjoyed by people of all ages in France, is the goal to do something similar with the film?

Kassovitz: It really is a children’s film. This is what we address first, from six, seven, eight years old, and their brothers and sisters, then their parents and their grandparents. For a five-year-old, it’s an adventure film. For a 15 year old, it’s a film about World War II. If you’re 22, it’s about the extermination of the Jewish people by the Nazis. And if you’re 50, you’ll know every detail and why we chose to include them. But we’ve been clear: for children aged 5 to 10, this is an adventure film about rabbits being chased through the woods by dogs.

Aton Soumache: I say we go to children from seven to 77 years old. We want to be honest and respect the public. That’s why we had a great writer in Caroline Thompson, who directed “Edward Scissorhands” and “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”

How close will your film be to the original book?

Kassovitz: For the story, the book has very little to do with what we’re going to do, but the book is the DNA of what we’re going to do. The book was written during World War II and released just as Paris was being liberated. The book has no characters, no dialogues, and it’s just an everyday story about surviving during the war. These were all symbolic stories that became part of World War II culture. The book is so important.

This is your first children’s film. What made you want to do something for a younger audience?

Kassovitz: I’m making this film because my master is Steven Spielberg, and he always will be. I will take this as seriously as he does. I’ve never made a children’s film, but if he had done that, I know the kind of film he would have made, an adult film for children where we talk to children, but where we wants their parents and grandparents to watch it with them. them, and they can talk afterwards.

Have you had any discussions about distribution? This looks like the kind of movie that should be watched in groups rather than sitting at home alone, especially for young people.

Soumache: I want this film to be theatrical; I don’t want it to go straight to streaming. I believe that we will make a film that must be experienced in the cinema and shared between parents, children, grandparents and adolescents. And in the future, we will have to launch in the clear. Every year, when they need Christmas or holiday programming, we want this film to be rebroadcast country by country. I worry that if we go to a streamer, people might watch it the day it comes out and love it, but forget about it when something else comes along and never see it again. I think we lose something by not respecting the uniqueness of the momentum that cinema creates, and something that could be a masterpiece can be lost. So as much as I can, I will push for a theatrical release.

It’s easy to look at the €30 million budget and say how ambitious this film is in commercial terms. But what do you hope to accomplish as a filmmaker by adapting this book, to which you have held the rights for almost two decades?

Kassovitz: We’ve made all kinds of World War II films before. We’ve covered it all, and while there will certainly still be wonderful films about war, I want ours to sum it all up because it will be about who we are when we are innocent. Children don’t understand war; they are corrupted by adults, but at first it is not part of their lives. They are protected. But this is not always the case. We know that there are children who are not protected at all and for them, war is often like a game. So, presenting it as a game with different levels of understanding will allow the film to support them in their growth. It’s ambitious, but it’s what we’re aiming for, and it’s the core of our work if you’re asking why we’re doing this.