Film about Gilles Villeneuve | Director Daniel Roby replaced in full production

The strongman of Quebec car racing will not get the same treatment as Louis Cyr. Daniel Roby will ultimately not direct the biographical sports drama Villeneuve: the rise of a champion on the life of the legendary Berthierville racing driver. A Canada-France co-production by Christal Films worth over $16 million.

Filming of the feature film began last winter in Valcourt under the leadership of the successful director who signed Funkytown And Louis Cyr. This is Yan Lanouette Turgeon (Miss Bottine, Rock-paper-scissors), who took his place in May and who has resumed filming since the beginning of September. He and his team will be, among other things, on the Sanair runway in Saint-Pie-de-Bagot in Montérégie in the coming days.

Joined by The Sun On Thursday afternoon, producer Christian Larouche of Films Opale and director Daniel Roby each said that a difference of vision had led to the end of their collaboration.

“Daniel wanted to make a racing film and preferred to include a lot more in the filming,” says the producer.

“It’s a story that I’ve been carrying for 10 years,” says Daniel Roby. “It’s certainly not with a light heart that I’m leaving the project.”

The director, who co-wrote the screenplay with Guillaume Lonergan, devoted time, resources and energy to it over the years. He developed valuable contacts in motor racing as well as in Gilles Villeneuve’s entourage in order to tell a story for which the Villeneuve family would give its blessing, something many have tried to do in vain since the hero’s death in 1982.

The director is no exception to the millions of Quebecers inspired and touched by the journey of the star driver, from Mauricie to Italy, who left his mark with his racing exploits. The screenplay tells how Gilles Villeneuve climbed the ranks from drag racing to Formula 1, via snowmobile ovals and Formula Atlantic.

Multiple skids

In addition to the change of director, the project also almost collapsed for another reason: a dispute over the sharing of royalties. Not to mention that some partners were reportedly exasperated by the significant expenses incurred during the first shoots in Valcourt and the way they went in February, it was learned The SunSome farmers who provide access to their fields around the Maricourt circuit have had to spend many months restoring their land.

“The snow wasn’t there for the snowmobile scenes,” says Christian Larouche. “So we have to go back this winter.”

Between the time the project was announced in the media in 2021 and today, the budget for the Canada-France co-production has grown from 12 million to more than 16 million Canadian dollars.

Is a film as expensive as Villeneuve: the rise of a champion would have been financed without the fame of Daniel Roby, the director behind several big-budget hits? Certainly, his departure in the middle of production is a rare case, if not unique, of a director leaving a Quebec shoot before it was finished.

Expensive replicas on the track

Part of the impressive budget was devoted to purchasing vintage road vehicles – impossible to rent and risk damaging them by installing cameras – and to reproducing several single-seaters such as the 1976 Ferrari 312 T2 that Gilles Villeneuve inherited when he first started out at Ferrari, as well as the March 76B Direct Film that allowed him to triumph at the Trois-Rivières Grand Prix in 1976.

“Vintage cars are complicated because they can’t be driven “idle” [ralenti]emphasizes producer Christian Larouche. So, we found someone in the United States who made us four replicas of Formula Atlantic, then we have nine shells that we had made to put on top. I also bought an original last year to use in the filming in the pits.

For the street cars, the production was still able to count on a prestigious collaboration. Involved in the project from the beginning and present on the shoots, Mélanie Villeneuve insisted on lending the 1971 Mustang Boss 351 so dear to her father.

Finally, two reproductions of the famous “bibitte”, this innovative single-seater snowmobile invented by Villeneuve, were built at a cost of $300,000, which required a lot of care from BRP engineers during filming in Valcourt according to sources contacted by The Sun.

The film’s release has been pushed back to Christmas 2025, instead of the summer as planned. The producer also confirms that the team will travel to Italy to film. Actors Rémi Goulet and Rosalie Bonenfant play the couple Gilles Villeneuve and Joann Villeneuve.

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