French Fried Vacation: collective success and the end of shared writing
Thierry Lhermitte reflects on the Splendid's dynamic that shaped the saga.
French Fried Vacation gathered 2.3 million cinema-goers, and French Fried Vacation 3 surpassed ten million, one of the biggest scores in French box-office history. Thierry Lhermitte recalls that the Splendid was born from four high-school friends - Christian Clavier, Gérard Jugnot, Michel Blanc and himself - later joined by Valérie Mairesse, Marie-Anne Chazel and Bruno Moynot. Everything was decided and written collectively, a method that, according to Écran Large, turned the troupe into a cult. Interviewed by Nagui on France Inter, he explains that the individualisation of careers ended these joint writing sessions, leaving behind a lesson about friendship and group dynamics.