Will Smith is to co-produce an English language remake of record-breaking French film 'Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis', entertainment industry press reported on Tuesday.

Daily Variety reported that the Hollywood version of the hit comedy — the highest-grossing home-grown film in French box-office history — would be titled 'Welcome to the Sticks'.

Directed by and starring comic Danny Boon, the original film takes aim at the prejudices about the Nord Pas de Calais region bordering Belgium.

It tells the story of a southerner forced by his company to go north and who finds, once he has mastered the impenetrable accent, people who open their hearts to strangers.

One of Smith's co-producers, Ken Stovitz, said the phenomenal box-office take of 'Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis', which has so far reached $191-million, had baffled Hollywood.

"There are only 65 million people who live in France, and $191-million seemed to defy all logic. But when we saw the film, it's obvious why it works," Stovitz told Variety.

"We will probably place the character in a global corporation, and he literally gets sent to the sticks, but finds that rather than a backward place, it provides all that was missing in his life."

The Variety report did not give details of who would star in the film.

AFP