Benjamin Franklin’s diplomatic mission to France during the American Revolution is front and center in the series Franklin.

My Oscar Book:

The series Oscar winner star (“Wall Street”) and executive producer Michael Douglas hit the Croisette in Cannes to talk up the show ahead of its world premiere tonight at the Canneseries festival.

Douglas told a packed room of reporters at the Barriere Le Majestic hotel that Cannes was the natural choice to premiere the show that makes its global streaming premiere on Apple on Friday, April 12.

“This is where our project is based. The story is about Benjamin Franklin coming to France to save America,” said Douglas. “We spent 165 shooting days in Paris and around France in 2022, and not only is it based on Franklin coming here in 1776/7, but we filmed it all in France, and it’s the least we can do to come back here to premiere it.”

“I’ve been here many, many times,” Douglas said. “These are all stories I will have to tell after I die. I have wonderful memories here.”

The story of Franklin begins in 1776 when Benjamin Franklin, 70 and a famous inventor but with zero diplomatic training, travels to Paris to try and convince the French monarchy to underwrite America’s experiment in democracy. Standing in his way are British spies, French informers and jealous colleagues. But Franklin prevailed, helping to negotiate the Franco-American alliance of 1778 and the peace treaty with England in 1783.

America has a lot to thank France for, said Douglas. “I don’t think people know how much of a role France played in saving our country,” he noted. “So thank you for the Statue of Liberty and also for our country.”

Franklin, based on the non-fiction book A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America by Pulizter Prize-winning writer Stacy Schiff is a co-production between Apple and ITV Studios America.

Two-time Emmy-winner Tim Van Patten (Band of Brothers, The Sopranos) directed the 8-episode limited series, from a script by Kirk Ellis and Howard Korder. Executive producers include Philippe Maigret, Mark Mostyn, and Tony Krantz.

This is the second time Douglas has played the founding father, having lent his voice to Franklin for an episode of the PBS series Freedom: A History of US in 2003.

“It’s different filming in French,” said Jupe, who admitted he hadn’t studied the language before getting the role of Temple Franklin, Benjamin’s illegitimate grandson, in the series. “The rhythm is much different. It felt like singing. It felt more expressive. I loved acting in French.”

The 80-year-old Douglas noted that given the current state of American politics, and worldwide democracy, Franklin is more than just a history lesson.

“It is a great reminder for me of how fragile Democracy is and how generous France was and is,” he said.