From black-and-white silent films and series to regional adaptations, French thrillers, and a Jim Caviezel noughties hit, Alexandre Dumas’s 1844 classic The Count of Monte Cristo makes for evergreen source material for film and TV.
Now, The Hunger Games star Sam Claflin puts his own charming spin on the vengeance-seeking prisoner Edmond Dantes in a new eight-episode miniseries that faithfully recreates the tumultuous years of early 19th-century France.
True to Dumas’ novel, the TV adaptation promises political conspiracies, personal vendettas, and sprawling locations from palatial French ballrooms to grim island fortresses.
What is The Count of Monte Cristo about?
The French-Italian production stars Claflin as Dantes, a man wrongfully imprisoned for treason. The site of his unlawful incarceration is the Château d’If, a wave-carved island off the coast of Marseilles. It’s in the claustrophobic confines of this prison where Edmond silently plans his next move.
Cut off from civilisation and his ladylove for fifteen years, Edmond returns a changed man, chancing upon some hidden treasure and taking on a new identity. His complicated schemes of revenge and manipulation lead to some delectable period drama.
With Danish Oscar-winner Bille August (Pelle the Conqueror, 1998’s Les Misérables) delivering his flair for grand historical narratives, the series resurrects Dumas’s all-time classic with meticulous production design and gripping performances.
Where was The Count of Monte Cristo filmed?
Filming for the series commenced between August and December 2023, incorporating locations in France, Italy, and Malta. The shooting locations go in tandem with the novel’s Mediterranean settings. While France is the heart of the story, it’s in various spots in Italy where the broken hero Edmond Dantes rediscovers a new purpose in his life.
Palais-Royal, Paris, France
A French royal palace dating back to the 16th century, the magnificently spread-out Palais-Royal complex overlooks the Louvre Museum and is one of Paris’s most identifiable landmarks. The palace’s grand exterior, spacious gardens, arched windows, and detailed ornamentation inside make it an ideal spot to double as a palace and ballroom for The Count of Monte Cristo’s major moments. Additionally, some of these sequences were also filmed at Paris’s globally-renowned Opéra Garnier.
The palace is currently the seat of the French culture ministry but it has changed many hands over the centuries. It was initially the personal residence of Cardinal Richelieu (interestingly, also the villain in Dumas’ The Three Musketeers). Since then, the palace’s ownership shifted between Louis XII, then Louis XIV, and so on.
The Palais is also a hotbed for France-set Hollywood productions like The Da Vinci Code, Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Interview with the Vampire, and the Netflix streaming hit Emily in Paris.
Place des Vosges, Paris
The Place des Vosges is Paris’s oldest planned square, once dominating the chic gentry of the city during the 17th and 18th centuries. The trimmed bushes and varnished houses here formed the exterior for the house of Baron Danglar, the scheming villain behind Edmond Dantes’s miseries.
Chateau de Suisnes, France
As for Danes’s county house, the production team set up base outside Paris at Chateau de Suisnes. The quaint mansion lies in northern France, less than an hour away from the capital city.
Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento Italiano, Turin
From its opera houses to piazzas, Turin is a medieval time capsule. So, it’s not surprising that the city hosted scenes in The Count of Monte Cristo. One location that preserves such old-school charm is the Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento Italiano aka the Museum of the Risorgimento (the 19th-century movement focusing on unfying the Italian states into a single nation). It used to be Italy’s first parlliament building but is now one of the country’s grandest museums.
Other Italian locations where The Count of Monte Cristo was filmed include the Palazzo Villanova in the commune of Strambino. The crew also reconstructed a hotel south of Turin, inside the Palazzina di Caccia di Stupinigi, an 18th century hunting lodge that is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Piazza Farnese, Rome
Set a few years after the French Revolution and Napoleon’s exile, The Count of Monte Cristo finds Edmond witnessing a criminal facing the guillotine in the city square. This gnarly execution comes to life at Rome’s Piazza Farnese, the main square of Rome’s Regola district.
Edmond’s Parisian apartment was also set up outside France with Roman palace of Palazzo Taverna.
Malta Film Studios, Malta
Off the coast of Marseilles, Edmond challenges death and plots his revenge as he’s trapped in the island prison of the Château d’If. Yet again, the crew didn’t rely only in France and opted for sets in Malta. Maltese locations like Mdina and Manoel Island, Gzira were also used for filming exterior shots of Marseilles.
Who stars in The Count of Monte Cristo?
Edmond Dantes, aka the titular count, is played by Claflin, the star of films like The Hunger Games franchise and Me Before You. On television, he’s best known as fascist politician Oswald Mosley in Peaky Blinders.
Claflin is joined by veteran actor Jeremy Irons, who has had his fair share of period dramas like The Man in the Iron Mask (another Dumas adaptation), Kingdom of Heaven, The Borgias, and Brideshead Revisited. Irons plays Abbé Faria, a wise priest imprisoned on the same island as Edmond.
French actress Ana Girardot (Escobar: Paradise Lost) plays Edmond’s long-term love interest, the French noblewoman Mercedes. Other cast members include Danish actor Mikkel Boe Følsgaard (A Royal Affair) and British actress Poppy Colette Corby-Tuech (Fantastic Beasts series).
Where can you stream The Count of Monte Cristo?
Already a streaming hit in Italy, The Count of Monte Cristo is available to stream in the UK on the free-to-air channel U&DRAMA.
