The Asterix Project

Asterix and the Golden Sickle is a canceled Belgian animated movie, based on the comic book of the same name.

In 1967, editing company Dargaud and animation studio Belvision adapted the first album of the popular Asterix series into the animated movie Asterix the Gaul. At the same time, they were already working on an animated movie adaptation of Astérix et La Serpe d'Or ("Asterix and the Golden Sickle" in French), the second book in the series, that would have been 68 minutes long.

The problem was, Albert Uderzo and Rene Goscinny had no idea that these movies were made and were not happy about it at all when they found out. According to Asterix.com, Goscinny and Uderzo were invited to a film screening by Georges Darguad and were "staggered to see a cartoon using their story and their graphics." They couldn't stop Gaul from being released but "to prevent a chill wind blowing up between the publisher/producer and his much venerated authors" the Asterix and the Golden Sickle Film project was ceremoniously dumped. Goscinny and Uderzo instead went on to make Asterix and Cleopatra under their own direction.

Asterix and the Golden Sickle has never been released publicly and it is not known whether it was fully or partially completed or if copies still exist. All that has been released to the public are six of the film's celluloids from the book "Asterix - The Mirror World" released to catalogue this exhibition held in Brussels, 2005.