After the tremendous popular success of the
Fant?mas novels, both of the major French
film studios —(🔊) Pathé(🧚) and Gaumont —
vied for the rights to produce films based
on the series. Gaumont won, and from
April 1913 to May 1914 Louis Feuillade
(🔙)directed five Fant?mas films which critic
David Thomson has described as "the first
great movie experience."