The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

Belgian comic writer Jean Van Hamme is spreading his works across the media.  Earlier this year a new television series featuring Stephen Dorff and Val Kilmer and based on his hit series XIII was launched in France, and now there’s a feature film.  In the same month that the sixteenth album is published in the series Largo Winch (”The Road and the Virtue”), cinemas in France and Belgium welcome the new Largo Winch movie.

The film is based on the first books in the series, and is directed by Jérôme Salle.  The part of Largo Winch is played by Tomer Sisley, and in the supporting cast we see people like Miki Manojlovic and Ivan Marevich (most famous for their performances in the movies of Serbian director Emir Kusturica), and the British actress (but French resident) Kristin Scott Thomas.

The story is pretty straightforward.  Nero Winch is a typical rags-to-riches businessman, who is murdered when his international holding, W, is at the top of its power.  Winch turns out to have adopted a son, Largo, who inherits his entire fortune.  Certain people aren’t too happy with this, and all of a sudden Largo’s life is in danger. Earlier, in 2001, a television series based on the same comic ran with moderate success in different countries across Europe. The albums have been immensely popular across Europe, although hardly known in the English language world; Cinebooks have been trying to rectify this with some very welcome English language editions, each of which collects two of the European volumes in one.