An official trailer of the much anticipated Netflix Tour de France documentary has emerged, showing how the series will portray the suffering and celebration of professional cycling by combining television and on-bike video footage with moments captured by roadside fans and on team buses and intimate behind-the-scenes interviews.
A few days ago the Netflix listing suggested the series will be called: Tour de France: Unchained. The trailer videos ends with a wrench title of Tour de France: Au cœur du peloton.
Whatever the final title, the series is expected to consist of eight 45-minute episodes, with several sources saying the series will be aired in June, just before the start of the 2023 Tour de France. It will be shown in 190 territories around the world.
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Other cycling documentaries are soon to air, with Jumbo-Visma releasing 'All In: Team Jumbo-Visma', on Amazon Prime in the Netherlands this week, while Soudal-QuickStep have also confirmed that a documentary about their 2022 season will be aired on Amazon Prime.
Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters presented the two-minute Tour de France series video after giving a keynote speech on Tuesday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Cyclingnews was able to obtain a copy of the video (see the embedded Twitter video below).
It opens with shots from the series and Groupama-FDJ team manager Marc Madiot saying: “You are soldiers, you are warriors. When you pull on a jersey, you become another person.”
It also shows brief moments of each episode, as the likes of Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) and Bob Jungels (riding for AG2R Citroën in 2022) win stages, as Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) struggles and Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) goes on to defeat Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates).
There are also comments from EF Education-EasyPost team manager Jonathan Vaughters and a French voice that says: “The Tour de France is very simple: It’s a bike race, every day, over 21 stages. It’s an enormous circus that travels around the country. It’s the world’s toughest race.”
Each of the eight episodes focuses on the eight teams that signed up to the project: AG2R Citroën, Alpecin-Fenix, Bora-Hansgrohe, EF Education-EasyPost, Groupama-FDJ, Ineos Grenadiers, Jumbo-Visma and QuickStep-AlphaVinyl.
UAE Team Emirates of two-time Tour winner Tadej Pogačar is not involved after the team’s concerns about the portrayal of the team and its sponsors but is shown in some race coverage and interviews.
"This project is part of our overall ambition to make our sport more accessible and meet an even wider audience," ASO managing director Yann Le Moënner said when he confirmed the series.
“Through a narrative approach, which is additive to the competition itself, the public will be able to discover how the Tour de France represents the ultimate challenge for the competitors; in particular in terms of suffering, pushing their limits and team spirit.”
The Netflix series has been made by Quadbox, a joint venture between Quad Productions and Box to Box Films – the producers of the F1 'Drive to Survive' series.
Reports that a series in the style of the Formula 1 'Drive to Survive' series would be made emerged last spring, with video crews following the eight teams during the 2022 season and especially during the Tour de France, when video crews were embedded with the eight teams.
Netflix reportedly covered the production costs of €8 million to make the series, paying a €1 million fee to the different parties involved. Tour de France organiser ASO and host broadcaster France Televisions both netted €250,000 each. The eight teams shared the remaining €500,000, giving each team €62,000 ($67,000).
Soudal-QuickStep team manager Patrick Lefevere grumbled that this was not much but Vaughters told Cyclingnews that he thinks teams, organisers, and the sport alike would all reap rewards from the series.
Drive to Survive is about to launch a fifth on Netflix as the 2023 Formula 1 season begins and the series has been praised for helping to boost interest for Formula 1, especially in new markets like the USA and with a younger audience.
"It almost pains me to say this, but I think ASO is actually helping the sport in general with this project and I'm on board with that," Vaughters said.
"Their media rights contracts around the world are based on viewer numbers. So, if cycling as a sport becomes more popular, the Tour de France will become more popular, and therefore their viewer numbers will go up, and therefore their media rights contracts will go up. So of course, they'll benefit."
