Under arrest: we tell you about the filming of Hakim Bougheraba's film

After 2 million admissions in 2 films, the SEGPA gang is moving up a gear by adapting another web series for the big screen. We spent an evening on the set of “Bad Boys of Marseille”, between a shooting scene and unbridled creativity. We tell you.

Last June, Première visited the set of Under nuts. As the film arrives in theaters this Wednesday, we tell you (extract from Première 556 magazine, November 2024).

There are five days of filming left, and the director Hakim Bougheraba has reason to be a little slammed. “We've been filming for two months now. I feel like I'm directing Avengers.” He films Under nuts since mid-April and is preparing for a night sequence – the most tiring, for the reasons one can imagine. And then, there is inevitably a bit of industrial pressure.

Under nuts is not a little school comedy filmed with the family – well, yes, but this time it will have to live up to the success of the first two feature films of the gang. The SEGPAs : 730,000 entries in spring 2022, and SEGPA on skis : almost 1.4 million admissions in December 2023. Two adaptations of web series whose popularity with a young audience has enabled the move to the big screen. Same punishment therefore, for Under nuts : each episode of the original series broadcast on YouTube in 2022) has achieved between 3 and 6 million views. The calculation was done very quickly.

So here is Under nutsthe film. If the SEGPA (modern and ill-bred heirs of Under-gifted) gently made fun of the school system, Under nutsthe web series, took place entirely in a prison cell and recounted the daily life of two inmates, the nice slacker Samy (Ichem BougherabaHakim's little brother) and the nervous little Nada (Arriles Amrani). The pitch of the cinema version is also simple: Samy, a pizza delivery man, is the double of Eddy, a super-mafioso hunted down by his competitors. The entire dynamic of the film is based on this comedy of errors when we mistake Samy for Eddy and vice versa.

But Under nutsthe feature film, will also be a cool action film with shootouts, stunts and explosions. “In terms of action, we are much more staffed than on the two SEGPAs“, explains the production director, Vanessa Gomez.

“The other day, a car was blown up in the Old Port…”

She guides us to the filming location of Avengers of Hakim Bougherabain a cannery in the port of Saumaty, north of Marseille. We are at the beginning of June. Today's challenge: shoot a shootout involving almost all the protagonists of the film – including a gang of killers led by Aurélia Agel, a stuntwoman trained at the CUC (Campus Univers Cascades), understudy among others for Charlize Theron In Fast & Furious. Hakim is on the job. “Honestly, we're having fun, I don't have any personal ambitions. I just want to make the best film possible, and for us to like it first. If so, I imagine it will resonate with the public. It is not the same format or the same dramaturgy as the original series. On YouTube it was sketches! We have taken on characters, but be careful, we are not in the continuity of the series. It’s just the same universe.”

We must therefore see Under nutsthe film, like a soft reboot.

We also had fun on the action side. Staying in prison is stressful. We grew up with Bad Boys, Taxi… Besides, touring with Bernard Farcy, what pride! In prison, it's complicated to have diversity, we added quite strong female characters with a team of robbers. But it's instinctive, not calculated at all. Almost all of the actors from the series are there !”

Except Sofiane Zermani : “He gained ground, we didn't want to offer him a small role. If we make a sequel, on the other hand, of course…”

Bougheraba's big brother, Ali, arrives. He tells us how he got the whole family involved in theater. Co-director of both SEGPA with Hakim, he let his brother realize alone Under nuts by contenting himself with being a screenwriter (he went to India to shoot a comedy on relocation with his other brother Redouane). “It's good that it's taking off… plus, this kind of film which mixes action and comedy is quite rare in France. Apart from Philippe Lacheau, who has some cool stuff, there not much. And then, it's a good thing that we're here to give a Marseille touch to the film.”

The set is noisy, hectic, the assistant director has to shout to ask for silence. Ichem arrives: dressed like Eddy, with his braid, his black clothes, his long coat, his sunglasses and his guns, he looks like a mix between Neo from Matrix And Zlatan Ibrahimovic. “Oh yeah! Zlatan is our reference! The braid and the attitude. But I would love to have his kick” he admits, before putting on a beard and dentures to play Samy. Ichem followed serious training as a stuntman to play his role, shooting, punching, receiving punches…

We prepare the weapons. The crew hands out earplugs to everyone on set. “There will be live fire, protect your ears! We'll shoot, we'll shoot!” Ichem repeats the scene by miming the recoil of his assault rifle, and asks his big brother for playing advice:

“When I shoot I chain everyone, like Call of?”

We laugh, we laugh, but the atmosphere is serious: it's still about shooting each other with blank bullets. Safety required, all this took a few hours of preparation. And when we finally turn, the noise of the bullets is deafening, especially in the confined space of the cannery warehouse (we hope that the Marseille police will not take this as a real settling of scores). Ichem moves well: he has to shoot, change weapons, take cover… After each shot, he will check his movements on the camera feedback to correct himself. And he gradually gets into the game, excited by the action: “48 frames per second, boom! Ichem live fire!” he shouts after one take. For their part, Bernard Farcy And Arriles Amrani wait outside, sitting on chairs, passionately discussing the Champions League and Real Madrid's performances. Meanwhile, the shootings continue until late at night. Bernard Farcyaround midnight, wonders: “The bouillabaisse, around what time?”

Under the Nuts, by Hakim Bougheraba, released on December 18 in the cinema.