The Real Housewives Invading France? Mais Oui!

Bravo's hit franchise—you won't believe what it's worth!—has big plans for the international market

By Natalie Finn Jan 04, 2012 9:15 PMTags
Andy Cohen, The Real Housewives of Beverly HIlls ReunionIsabella Vosmikova/Bravo

And you thought Paris already had its share of femmes fatales.

The increasingly ubiquitous Real Housewives franchise is in the process of casting a French installment of the hit series, E! News has confirmed.

Sacré bleu, indeed!

But, just wait, this is only the beginning. Be prepared for the franchise to start crossing oceans right and left...

NBC Universal International is also looking into expanding the soaptastic reality show—or docusoap, if you will— into moneyed areas of Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia and the U.K., though nothing is confirmed yet. (E! Online is a member of the NBCU family.)

But isn't there some concern that the show's, er, message might be lost in translation?

Not with The Real Housewives of Athens gearing up for a second season, The Real Housewives of Israel under way and a Vancouver edition premiering this year, there isn't!

"It's good clean fun," Andy Cohen, Watch What Happens host and Bravo programming honcho, told the Hollywood Reporter. "You can watch it, you can talk about it with your friends and, at the end of the day, you can feel better about yourself and your life."

Of course, the water cooler conversation comes at the expense of actual people rather than scripted characters, but if the international interest in Real Housewives proves one thing, it's that there is no shortage of people willing to put themselves out there—in any language—and plenty of people willing to watch.

The Hollywood Reporter, which first broke the très interesting news, values the Real Housewives franchise, factoring in advertising revenue and branding potential, to be worth roughly $500 million.

Talk—let alone crying and screaming—doesn't come cheap.