Producer Jean-Luc Azoulay has just revealed that the series “Friends” was inspired… by “Hélène and the boys”! He even revealed the underside of an astonishing deal with the big bosses of the NBC sitcom.
In 2019, producer Jean-Luc Azoulay dropped a little bombshell by affirming that the sitcom The Miracle of Love had inspired Friends. But today, the Frenchman goes further by declaring at the microphone of our colleagues from Europe 1 that the cult NBC series had more precisely drawn its concept from… Hélène and the boys!
But how did the series Friends, with its cult credits on which you absolutely have to pause after nine seconds, become inspired by the sentimental adventures of Hélène, Nicolas, Laly, Cri-Cri d’amour & Co. broadcast between 1992 and 1994?
According to Jean-Luc Azoulay, it all started at the Marché de l’Audiovisuel, when he was trying to sell the international version of his sitcom, very aptly named Hélène and The Boys.
If Hélène and The Boys never found broadcasters abroad and international success came with the purchase of the original Hélène and the boys subtitled or dubbed, this US version caught the eye of producers from Friends!
“So, that gave them the idea of making Friends”declares Hélène Rolles, also present on the set of Europe 1. The opportunity for Jean-Luc Azoulay to take us behind the scenes of a surprising negotiation.
“The producers of Friends came to us to buy the rights to Hélène and the boys, and to The Miracle of Love that we were putting together”explains the producer.
And Azoulay concludes: “They negotiated with Claude Berda, who finally told them: ‘Look, I’m giving you the rights, but you’re giving me Friends for distribution in France. That’s why it was AB that distributed Friends for years, and for free at that.”
The series Hélène and the Boys and The Miracle of Love respectively ended in 1994 and 1996. But the universe created by the inexhaustible Jean-Luc Azoulay is still and more than ever on the air: the sitcom Les Mystères of love, broadcast on TMC, is currently in its… 33rd season!
Friends: cult scenes!