Guillaume Canet is back for the Netflix Ad Vitam sequel, with Ad Vitam Eternam now in production in France. The move follows a French action film that kept building after release and gives Netflix a sequel play on a title that already proved it could travel beyond France.
Ad Vitam drew 70 million views worldwide in the first semester of 2025 and finished the year with 80 million views. It also ranked 9th among the most-watched non-English movies globally, a level that makes a continuation a business decision as much as a creative one.
Canet returns as Franck
Guillaume Canet returns as Franck and will again coproduce and cowrite through Cabanes Productions with Jean Cottin. He also cowrote the script with Maxime Chattam, with collaboration from David Corona, while Ludovic Colbeau-Justin directs. That combination keeps the sequel tied to the same creative core that made the first film a strong performer for French Netflix.
Canet had done most of his own stunts on Ad Vitam, and he had already said during promotion of the first film that he was open to a return, using the line “before getting arthritis”. Now Netflix has moved ahead while he stays attached to the sequel as both performer and creative participant, which is a different level of commitment than a simple cameo or one-off reprise.
Paris to Provence-Alpes-Côte-D’Azur
Production is spread across Paris, Île-de-France, Savoie, Normandy and Provence-Alpes-Côte-D’Azur, with casting calls also pointing to sequences shot around the Mont-Saint-Michel abbey. That geographic spread suggests a larger production footprint than the first film’s launch period, and it gives the sequel multiple visual registers to work with inside the same story world.
Stéphane Caillard, Nassim Lyes and Zita Hanrot return, while Nicolas Duvauchelle, Sophie Marceau and Mathieu Amalric join the cast. Duvauchelle brings recent Netflix familiarity through Areski Novak in the three Lost Bullet movies and in the first season of Blood Coast, while Marceau and Amalric add names already linked to Braveheart, The World Is Not Enough, The Diving Bell And The Butterfly, Munich and Quantum Of Solace.
Franck under pressure
Ad Vitam Eternam sets Franck up after an assassination attempt when he leaves prison, then sends him into hiding with his family in the mountains before French intelligence services track him down and offer a covert mission in exchange for the truth he wants. That setup keeps the sequel in the same action-thriller lane while widening the stakes from survival to leverage.
The smart read is simple: Netflix is treating Ad Vitam less like a one-off French release and more like a franchise with proven global reach. The remaining question is the practical one readers care about most — when Ad Vitam Eternam will be released.
