Tardi’s Adèle on the Big Screen!

This has been a bit under the radar for American fans (I don't remember seeing a peep about it on such sites as aint-it-cool) but Luc Besson is well underway filming his adaptation of what looks like the first two or three Adèle Blanc-Sec albums by Jacques Tardi , and the movie is supposed to premiere in France next Spring and open throughout Europe during the Spring and Summer. (No American distributor yet, but it's hard to believe a Besson movie wouldn't find a Stateside berth.) It's intended as the first of a trilogy, too, presumably adapting the whole series.

With a cast that includes Bond villain (and, for the art-cinema crowd, Diving Bell and Butterfly star) Mathieu Almaric and go-to psychotic Philippe Nahon (of I Stand Alone, Irreversible, and High Tension infamy), as well as a relatively unknown but mighty pretty young woman as Adèle (although it's a pity that Isabelle Huppert, who was born to play Adèle just as much as Shelley Duvall was born to play Olive Oyl, is too old for the part by now), Adèle looks like it could be a lot of fun; the plot description suggests that Besson is hewing very closely to the original. (And the "Indiana Jones meets Amélie" description is inspired.) It's Besson's first all-out action/adventure movie since The Fifth Element 12 years ago.

Here's the poster, and click here for a scan of the PR one-sheet:

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec movie poster