Richard Goudreau

Richard Goudreau was a Canadian film producer and sometime screenwriter and director, whose major credits were closely tied to the catalogue of his production company Melenny Productions. Founded in 1994 by Goudreau, previously a film distributor, Melenny's biggest success was "Les Boys" (1997), a down-home sports comedy about a bunch of local guys who play in a little league ice hockey team together. Roundly panned by the critics on release, the easy-going cultural references of the film touched a nerve with the French-Canadian population of the country, and it would go on to be a large hit in the Québécois film industry. Initially directed by Louis Saïa, the same director would take charge of "Les Boys II" (1998) and "Les Boys III" (2001), before the successful franchise continued with "Les Boys IV" (2005), the "Les Boys" television series (2007-2012) and the fifth film "Il etait une fois les boys" (2013). Although the first "Les Boys" film would lead to a broader revival of Québécois filmmaking, the rest of Goudreau's French-language film output has gone on to take a relatively secondary role to his defining series.