It’s now official: “Plus belle la vie” will be making a comeback on TF1, just a few months after bowing out. News that should delight fans of the France 3 soap opera.
It’s now official: More beautiful life will be back on television in 2024. Almost 9 months after its shutdown, TF1 is preparing to relaunch the daily soap opera on its antenna. It is in an interview given to our colleagues from Figaro that Ara Aprikian, deputy director general in charge of content for the private channel, announced this news which should delight fans of the France 3 series.Plus belle la vie will be relaunched in early 2024 on the TF1 channel and our streaming platform MYTF1” he thus informed.
Launched in August 2004, Plus belle la vie made the heyday of France 3 for more than 18 years, telling the more or less incredible daily life of the inhabitants of the Mistral district. The announcement of its cessation in 2022 had angered fans, but also film crews, the Marseille studios employing more than 600 people.
“Plus belle la vie is a major popular, regional soap opera, embodied around the values of solidarity.,” explained Ara Aprikian to our colleagues before adding that the series “is entertainment, but also the embodiment of a certain popular France, based on mutual aid.”
Shooting in October
The filming of the sequel to Plus belle la vie should resume in mid-October, in new sets, the previous ones having been destroyed last January. Does this mean that the Place du Mistral will no longer be the nerve center of the series? Answer in the next few months.
Vincent Meslet, the general manager of Newen France also explained that the program will change to be in tune with the times and adapt to current codes: “It will not be a simple sequel, but a new creation. We are building a team mixing new authors with the heirs of Plus belle la vie with the ambition of instilling a new dynamism.”
If TF1 has not yet announced the cast of this sequel to Plus belle la vie, former actors from the series should make their comeback, alongside “new characters and new families”.
Marwan Berreni (Abdel Fedala), Sylvie Flepp (Mirta Torrès), Léa François (Barbara Evenot), Stéphane Hénon (Jean-Paul Boher), Cécilia Hornus (Blanche Marci) and Laurent Kérusoré (Thomas Marci) have thus been announced. Other names should come later.
A digital broadcast?
For the moment, the channel has not yet decided on the schedule for the broadcast of the soap opera, but Ara Aprikian has nevertheless specified that Plus belle la vie will be offered to “prime time”.
However, two possibilities seem to stand out: it could be offered at the start of the afternoon, in the wake of the 1 p.m. newscast, or, in the evening, before Here everything begins and Tomorrow belongs to us, the other two soap operas of TF1.
The channel is also relying heavily on its digital offer and thus hopes to use its MyTF1 streaming platform to build the audience that is already used to connecting to it to discover preview episodes of its two other soap operas.
“They are the main audience contributors to our digital offer,” explained Ara Aprikian to Figaro before adding “[Les séries] that are able to generate strong audiences both in linear and digital are extremely rare. It turns out that Plus belle la vie brings together all of these qualities.“See you at the beginning of 2024 to discover the new version of Plus belle la vie.