“Two worlds came together”: How Pathe targeted two distinct audiences for French hit ‘Marsupilami’

Philippe Lacheau’s creature feature Marsupilami is the top film at the French box office in 2026 to date, with some 5.6 million admissions since its February 4 release. The live-action family adventure is based on a popular character created by André Franquin, and first appeared in 1952 in Franco-Belgian comics magazine Spirou as a leopard-­like fictional species with a long, flexible tail and superhero strength. The film stars local comedy icon Jamel Debbouze alongside director Lacheau and his La Bande à Fifi comedy troupe, who previously joined him for French box-­office hits Babysitting and Alibi.com. Pathé Films and Lacheau’s BAF Prod produce.

“It’s based on a children’s character, so it was meant for family audiences and children,” says Nathalie Cieutat, head of distribution at Pathé Films. “However, Lacheau and his troupe are known for more irreverent humour for teens or adults. So we didn’t want to scare off families, nor lose Lacheau’s loyal audience.”

The challenge was how to make a movie that appealed to both of those audiences. “Two worlds came together,” says Cieutat.

Another Marsupilami film, directed by and starring Alain Chabat and also co-starring Debbouze, was released in France in 2012, selling 5.3 million tickets. The 2026 iteration has overtaken its predecessor and become Lacheau’s biggest hit after six weeks in cinemas, exceeding Pathé’s expectations. It expects the film’s run to continue well into spring.

Target audiences

The company’s marketing campaign kicked off last summer with a teaser poster before a major push around the Toussaint holi­day (All Saints’ Day) on November 1, and again during the Christmas holidays and into January. “Audiences all saw the Marsupilami trailer when they went to see Avatar: Fire And Ash or The Housemaid,” says Cieutat.

Pathé experimented with marketing tool TikTok Spotlight, which helps studios and streamers aggregate organic and user-­generated content for a specific film. This provided Pathé with data and analytics that helped leverage fan reactions and draw a younger, social-media friendly audience.

For its in-house content, Pathé already had a strong starting point with a bigger-than-average volume of videos and photos from set. “We had more than 60 digital capsules, more than any we’ve had for any film,” says Cieutat. “We realised the importance of behind-the-scenes content — people like to see [these] videos.” While the studio planned this content in advance of the shoot, “it is not always easy to get actors to participate, but they played the game and producers made it a priority”.

Pathé also pushed the content on Facebook and Instagram, and on Snapchat, with paid-for media and a special filter allowing users to take a photo of themselves with the character. For the first time, it used French social-media app BeReal as a partner.

While many local comedies and children’s movies tend to perform better outside of Paris, Marsupilami has been particularly provincial. Only 106,000 (less than 2%) of the 5.6 million tickets sold so far came from inside Paris — even less than the country’s overseas territories, which have accounted for 110,000 admissions. That tracks below Lacheau’s previous film, 2023’s Alibi.com 2, where 3.25% of its admissions had come from Parisian cinemas by the end of its sixth week.

Pathé deployed a vast nationwide promotional tour ahead of the February release, seeking to capitalise on the appeal of the family genre outside the capital. Lacheau and cast members were sent to 90 cinemas in 30 cities between December and the end of January — more ambitious than a typical event tour for a major local release. There were also regional premieres in Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Le Havre and Lille, among others.

Event cinema

Marsupilami was also released in Imax, Dolby Vision, 4DX and ICE, the first French film to benefit from the full range of premium formats, as a way for Pathé to position it as “a major event film”. It also sweetened concession stands with branded buckets containing yellow‑and-black popcorn in homage to the title character’s fur.

Pathé is one of the few French producers to produce merchandise based on its films. On this occasion, the designs of plush toys took more than a year to develop. Demand outstripped supply — the stuffed animals are currently out of stock but expected to be replenished by the summer. Pathé is also developing seasonal products for Halloween and Christmas and has launched an official online shop for merchandise and clothing inspired by the film.

Marsupilami has been sold to more than 50 territories and been released in 11 countries. It topped the local box office for more than a month in Belgium and was the top French film in Quebec after its first week in cinemas. It has also performed well in Switzerland and Turkey.

“The film is very funny, it’s feel-good. I’ve rarely seen people laugh out loud so much in cinemas,” says Cieutat. Local marketing teams created content using infrared cameras to film the audience, a ploy used typically to capture responses to horror films — but this time people are laughing. In the current fraught geo­political context, Cieutat says: “People want to be entertained. Philippe Lacheau has received so many messages from spectators saying, ‘Thank you, I needed to laugh.’”

Pathé notes that it is too early to confirm a sequel but, given Lacheau’s sequels to Babysitting and Alibi.com surpassed the box office of the originals, odds are that the studio will seek to extend its marsupial empire.

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