The American version of the French classic, "Les Visiteurs" began when filmmakers John Hughes and Ricardo Mestres traveled to Paris to meet the creative team behind France's most successful comedy. The original film featured a classic fish-out-of-water story line involving a medieval Count and his faithful servant who are accidentally transported forward in time to modern-day France. Their adventures with such new-fangled inventions as automobiles, electricity and indoor plumbing included memorable comedic sketches wrapped inside of a heart warming family story that became a true box-office phenomenon in Europe and Asia.
The French creative team of writer/star Christian Clavier, star Jean Reno as well as writer/director Jean-Marie Gaubert and producer Patrice Ledoux, was agreeable to the idea of an American remake of the film. They had seen hit French films used as source material for successful American adaptations in the past. However, this was different, in that the producers wanted Reno and Clavier to reprise their roles as medieval Frenchmen alongside a primarily American cast. John Hughes, Clavier and Gaubert combined forces, creating a delightfully entertaining, funny and poignant script for Gaubert to direct in America.
The new story presented the writers with several interesting questions. What if the count and his valet not only ended up in the wrong time period but the wrong country and culture as well? What if they ended up in a modern-day American city as unwitting immigrants? How would this affect the well-established characters? Clavier's character, the faithful valet Andr6 le Pate, was expanded to explore new concepts such as liberty and equality.
Producer Ricardo Mestres feels that Gaubert was uniquely qualified to direct the new film. "Jean-Marie is an unusual French director in that his movies feel more like American films than French films when you look at them. He has a very popular sense, he knows our culture and loves American movies. He's really a student of America and knows very clearly what American audiences love. But, he is also a Frenchman and as a result, has a foreign point of view. It's often the case that it takes an outsider to show us who we really are. For him to take on the American remake of this movie is, I think, very refreshing.
"Also, Jean-Marie is similar to the characters in that he is also traveling from France to America and has had the first-hand fun of reacting to the strange culture he's been confronted with."
"Jean-Marie is the most famous director of comedies in France," explains French producer Patrice Ledoux. "You could write pages and pages of commentaries about directing serious films. But not with comedy. The main idea is for the director to laugh and entertain himself. Comedy is difficult and simple; you either laugh or you don't laugh. It's either funny or it's not funny. The most difficult thing is to direct a comedy and to be funny in a film. That's a real challenge. Jean-Marie is very good at that."
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