Arthur (Besson book series)

The Arthur series refers to a series of fantasy novels for children written by Luc Besson, a film director and producer, and published from 2002 to 2005 in France, the United States and the United Kingdom. This term also refers to the feature films based on them, which Besson wrote, produced and directed. The films were made and released from 2006 to 2010, in France, the UK and the US. The series has also been produced in video game format.

Novels

The four novels were originally published in France by Intervista. Later reissues by Le Livre de poche have dropped the "Arthur et" part of the titles.

1. Arthur et les Minimoys (2002, literally and in English as Arthur and the Minimoys)
2. Arthur et la cité interdite (2003, literally and in English as Arthur and the Forbidden City)
3. Arthur et la vengeance de Maltazard (2004, literally "Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard")
4. Arthur et la guerre des deux mondes (2005, literally "Arthur and the War of the Two Worlds")

Only the first two books have been published in English (translator: Ellen Sowchek)^[1] by HarperCollins in the United States and Faber and Faber in the United Kingdom. These two were reissued in one volume in 2007 by the latter publisher as Arthur and the Invisibles.^[2]

Films

1. Arthur et les Minimoys (2006) (literally "Arthur and the Minimoys"), based on the two books Arthur et les Minimoys and Arthur et la cité interdite. It is distributed in the English cut as Arthur and the Invisibles.
2. Arthur et la vengeance de Maltazard (2009) (literally "Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard"), based on Arthur et la vengeance de Maltazard.
3. Arthur 3: La Guerre des deux mondes (2010) (literally "Arthur 3: The War of the Two Worlds"), based on Arthur et la guerre des deux mondes.

The latter two features, which were made back-to-back, have a directly continuous storyline and differ somewhat in the casting of the voice-only roles. They were distributed theatrically in the United Kingdom after being edited together and released as Arthur and the Great Adventure.^[3] For the United States, the full two features were released as direct-to-video, as Arthur and the Invisibles 2 & 3: The New Minimoy Adventures.^[4] In addition, a "4-D film," Arthur : L'Aventure 4D, has been an attraction at Futuroscope.

Video games

Video games for the popular consoles of the time have been released alongside the first two films. The Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard games have been distributed in the United Kingdom and under that name despite the film not being so.

• Arthur et les Minimoys (Game Boy Advance, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2)
• Arthur et la vengeance de Maltazard (Microsoft Windows, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 3, Wii)

Other media

• Arthur and the Invisibles (soundtrack)
• In June 2014, the Europa-Park theme park in Rust, Germany opened Arthur – The Ride, an inverted-spinning dark ride based on the Arthur movies and characters. The ride includes audio-animatronics and projected footage from the films. The ride's cost was €25 million.^[5]

Notes