On Wednesday, April 30, 2025, Netflix finally unveiled the mini-series Asterix & Obelix: The Battle of the Chiefs, which marked the grand return of the brilliant Alain Chabat to the universe developed by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo. Good news! It could well be that the former Les Nuls will return to the world of Asterix sooner than expected!
Asterix: Alain Chabat soon to return to Gaul?
More than twenty years after the triumph of Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra, unanimously considered the best live-action adaptation of Asterix, the great Alain Chabat returned to Gaul to the delight of his fans, with the 3D animated series Asterix & Obelix: The Battle of the Chiefs. Acclaimed by both the press and the public, this series is a real gem, which not only adapts the seventh album of the adventures of the Indomitable Gauls, but also manages to create the perfect blend of the humor of René Goscinny and that of Alain Chabat. Wonderfully animated, it also manages to deliver a scathing take on colonization.
As Alexandre Astier explained, Alain Chabat is the ideal candidate for an adaptation of Asterix, as the actor-director worships comics. Not just the works of Goscinny, by the way; Didier's father has never hidden his love for the legendary Belgian cartoonist André Franquin, whose universe he adapted part of in On the Trail of the Marsupilami. Just recently, Alain Chabat explained to Konbini that he dreamed of adapting Z comme Zorglub and L'Ombre du Z, the fifteenth and sixteenth albums of the Adventures of Spirou and Fantasio, to the screen. But Alain Chabat could soon take his love of comics even further... -found twenty preparatory pages for an album of the most famous of the Gauls, entitled Asterix at the Circus. As her father's sole beneficiary, Anne Goscinny works passionately on this legacy; she also wrote the screenplay for the wonderful animated film Le Petit Nicolas - Qu'est-ce qu'on attend pour être heureux?, which looks back at the creation of the famous character by René Goscinny and Sempé. Moreover, René Goscinny was played by a certain... Alain Chabat. Of course, Anne Goscinny immediately thought of entrusting the director of Asterix & Obelix: The Battle of the Chiefs the delicate mission of completing the comic strip started by René Goscinny.
Interviewed by Ouest-France,Alain Chabat seems eager to take up the challenge, even if he is aware of the stakes and difficulties of such a challenge. "It's beyond responsibility. It's very intimidating. I have story ideas from this beginning. But obviously, no one knows where René Goscinny wanted to go. We can indeed continue to talk about it with Anne. Especially if we find more information on this album. I can't say more, but, indeed, there is a brilliant beginning." While many authors have appropriated the world of Asterix in order to produce original stories, Alain Chabat, for his part, seems to want to stay as close as possible to René Goscinny's narrative ambitions. A completely laudable desire on his part!
For our part, we strongly hope that this project will reach its conclusion and that we will one day discover a new Asterix story by René Goscinny and Alain Chabat. All that remains is to find the ideal artist, capable of matching the impressive talent of the late Albert Uderzo. If this article interested you, don't hesitate to discover these six Franco-Belgian comics that are just waiting to be adapted into animated series by Netflix!
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