Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)

[Creed]

I like him a lot.

[esteban²]

Originally Posted by Talal86

that pretty much sums up DeHaan for me too (I've seen him in Chronicles and The Amazing Spider-Man 2)

Okay, I can see that in some way, giving those two titles. Although I do believe he was electrifying and quite intense in Chronicle. Great performance, uplifting the movie. But he's more than that, for sure.

[sandman slim]

Originally Posted by Underworld54

$209M budget...this is going to need to make so much money...but it won't.

I saw an article a few days ago (think it was on Dark Horizons) quoting Luc Besson as saying the film has already broke even due to presales to foreign distributors. They're still hoping for a big hit, of course, but it doesn't need to make half a billion just to pay back the investors.

(Edit: found it.

http://www.darkhorizons.com/valerian...as-it-appears/

Europa's financial risk is capped at a whopping 4 percent of the budget, or $8.4 million. So they need to make $8.5 million back from the worldwide release to be profitable. Smart.)

[soarinsteven]

Originally Posted by Tony208

Holy crap! Luc Besson has done it again. Another classic sci-fi adventure. A wonderful imagination. It'll be compared to The Fifth Element and I give that one the edge because the leads and chemistry are better.

Rihanna? Like most people I rolled my eyes hard when she showed up in the trailer. She actually has the best scene in the movie. Trailers do not do this movie justice at all.

4.5-5/5

Relieved to see this film getting some strong notices, and about my RiRi! I'm excited for this.

[Rodney-2187]

worldofvalerian.com

[Tony208]

Originally Posted by rodneyfaile

worldofvalerian.com

Hope we get to see a sequel so we can see more aliens. There were a lot of cool ones that we only saw a glimpse of.

[tenia]

Originally Posted by sandman slim

I saw an article a few days ago (think it was on Dark Horizons) quoting Luc Besson as saying the film has already broke even due to presales to foreign distributors. They're still hoping for a big hit, of course, but it doesn't need to make half a billion just to pay back the investors.

(Edit: found it.

http://www.darkhorizons.com/valerian...as-it-appears/

Europa's financial risk is capped at a whopping 4 percent of the budget, or $8.4 million. So they need to make $8.5 million back from the worldwide release to be profitable. Smart.)

But on the other hand, they registered a record loss this year at - 130M€, so they will need Valerian to succeed more than this in order to start filling up this loss.

It's funny because they also said EuropaCorp wants to focus on action and scifi movies with reasonable budgets, and their first event is Valerian and its 180M€ budget.

[Rodney-2187]

The opening scene of Valerian will be attached to some 3-D showings of Spider-Man:Homecoming.

[esteban²]

@Sandman Slim, glad for once they shared about about the breaking even point. That's much more the case then people realize, deals like this and many other aspects. Even in Hollywood. I whish more studio's would be open, so everyone finally learns the current 'accepted' rules are often not applied.

In other news ... a film journalist I know had an interview with Luc Besson. Belgian members can read it in the Vertigo movie magazine. Gonna translate some bits and parts of facts I thought were interesting.

* When he was little, Luc Besson lived by the ocean. He had to move to Paris when his parents divorced and couldn't get used to the big city. It was then he started to read and love the original comic in a weekly magazine and fell in love with it. It was his way to escape the world.

* When working on The Fifth Element, Jean-Claude Mézières (the creator of the Valerian comic) helped out in the fase of designing that movie. He said to Besson : "Why are you wasting your time on a foolish film like The Fifth Element? You should do something with Valerian instead." Luc Besson thought it was simply impossible to accomplish that because of the limited technical possibilities. For him, it was in 2005 that the limitations were gone ... and he started working on the script.

* The movie is mostly based on the 6th Valerian comic, "Ambassador of the Shadows". Besson thinks it was the obvious choice, because the structure was like a movie already, it has multiple interesting themes and the main characters were at their strongest in this one. He thinks the story is both little, tragic and powerfull when it comes to the human side of it, but also extremely big and filled with fun when it comes to the adventure and discovering the galaxy.

* Mézières never made a secret out of the fact he wasn't pleased that Star Wars : A New Hope borrowed a lot from his comics. "One would think they actually filmed 'Valerian' instead", the creator stated in 1977. Besson can see that too, but he thinks it's a bit out of place to say Star Wars is a copy. He believes Lucas has used some ideas like the Millenium Falcon, the famous bikini scene for Leia, a frozen Han Solo, ... and more. But he sees that more as a hommage to the comic and understands comics were a source of inspiration in lots of movies.

* Besson is hoping the film does well enough, cause he's already working on the sequel in his mind. He didn't want to share which story will be used for that one.

* Luc Besson stated the budget is actually $194 M instead of the numbers going around on the internet.

[Chaotic]

Originally Posted by rodneyfaile

The opening scene of Valerian will be attached to some 3-D showings of Spider-Man:Homecoming.

Ugh, I hate when openings are shown before the movie comes out. The first DM3 trailer was the first 5 minutes.

[AaronJ]

Originally Posted by esteban²

@Sandman Slim, glad for once they shared about about the breaking even point. That's much more the case then people realize, deals like this and many other aspects. Even in Hollywood. I whish more studio's would be open, so everyone finally learns the current 'accepted' rules are often not applied.

In other news ... a film journalist I know had an interview with Luc Besson. Belgian members can read it in the Vertigo movie magazine. Gonna translate some bits and parts of facts I thought were interesting.

Wow, that was all very interesting.

Thank you very much.

[Underworld54]

Originally Posted by sandman slim

I saw an article a few days ago (think it was on Dark Horizons) quoting Luc Besson as saying the film has already broke even due to presales to foreign distributors. They're still hoping for a big hit, of course, but it doesn't need to make half a billion just to pay back the investors.

(Edit: found it.

http://www.darkhorizons.com/valerian...as-it-appears/

Europa's financial risk is capped at a whopping 4 percent of the budget, or $8.4 million. So they need to make $8.5 million back from the worldwide release to be profitable. Smart.)

I knew the risk was spread out but not to that extent. That's fantastic for Europa. Hopefully these partnerships continue so we can get other things besides remakes and reboots off the ground.

[Creed]

Go Behind the Scenes of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) - YouTube

Love how giddy Cara and Dane were.

Cara: Man, wasn't that loud?
Crew: What?


Cara: (after fighting two men) One more!

[DanTheMan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDb9rz2Fv4Y

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by esteban²

@Sandman Slim, glad for once they shared about about the breaking even point. That's much more the case then people realize, deals like this and many other aspects. Even in Hollywood. I whish more studio's would be open, so everyone finally learns the current 'accepted' rules are often not applied.

Come on, you've gotta admit that's one HELL of a deal as not every $200M movie has NINE credited production companies all chipping in with the cost. This is almost an indie rather than some massive studio behemoth so of course the same rules don't apply. The bigger the outlay the bigger the risk, and so most major studio tentpoles DO leave their main financiers hugely exposed should they tank.

It also helps that Valerian is being distributed by a shit-ton of different outfits around the world who've all had to pony up to get the rights to the film - again, unlike most big $200M flicks which usually come from a studio that's big enough to be able to distribute it around the world themselves. Chinese co-production has helped to muddy the waters a bit in recent years, sure, but even so: the Chinese may be putting money in but you'll only get 25% back from that same territory so the movie has still got to perform well in other markets.

Not every movie has to gross a bajillion doolars to succeed because it's all relative, but were Valerian to sink like a stone (and I can't shake the feeling that it will, at least in the States) do you think that that same coterie of investors would be queuing up to spend money on a sequel? Just because Europacorp are only exposed for $8M doesn't miraculously mean the eight other production companies aren't going to want to see a return on their investment too. So yeah, the numbers still very much matter if people like the movie and want to get a sequel.

[xbs2034]

It's first tracking so things can change before release, but Deadline has it tracking towards a $20 million opening. Which might be enough for some people to make back limited exposure, but overall is a terrible number for a film costing over $200 million (Dunkirk is tracking for $35 million that weekend as well).

http://deadline.com/2017/07/war-for-...ue-1202123662/

[stick2bluray]

for me, this is the movie i look forward to the most this year.

even if the whole story would be terrible, at least i have a kick ass 3D experience. because the movie looks incredible. not since avatar have i seen a movie that looks so rich in colors.

[llj]

Hopefully the movie will be "good", but money wise it does seem like it's gonna bomb.

[Dead By Shaun]

This is easily one of my most anticipated films of the year and I, for one, plan on having my butt in a seat to see it on opening weekend. I'm a big fan of "The Fifth Element" (I saw it during it's original theatrical run ), so I'm hoping Besson can capture that magic on screen once again. Between this, GOTG2 and the Last Jedi, it's a good year for fans of space opera. I'm a happy camper

[stvn1974]

I fully expect it to bomb and not get a sequel but I will be happy if it is on the same level of awesome as The Fifth Element is.