Director calls film the movie of his life Fully vested in ‘Valerian’

By LINDSEY BAHR

AP Film Writer

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.

“I’m Valerian and she’s Laureline,” Luc Besson says with a smile, and gesturing to his producer and wife Virginie Besson-Silla. “She’s the clever one.”

Valerian and Laureline are the lead characters of Besson’s sci-fi epic, “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets,” which hits theaters Friday. They’re names that most American audiences don’t know, even though the French comic about two 28th century intergalactic cops that it’s based on, “Valerian and Laureline,” has been in existence for 60 years and influenced “Star Wars.”

The filmmakers are seated in their shared office inside the Beverly Hills outpost of Besson’s company EuropaCorp about a month before the film’s stateside debut.

They were colleagues before they were anything else. Now they have three children, ages 15, 14 and 11, and have found they actually enjoy being partners at the office and home.

“We were not stupid. There is a risk. We took our time and then very consciously we said, ‘Let’s try on one to see if it works,”’ Besson says. “Actually it works 10 times better than I expected.”

“Valerian” is by far the biggest film they’ve ever done – estimated to have a $180 million price tag. Both are coming off the success of “Lucy” and the decades of goodwill Besson has built up in wild-eyed, crowd pleasing genre fare like “La Femme Nikita,” “The Professional” and “The Fifth Element.”

He says “Valerian” is the movie of his life.

Though he was a lifetime fan of the series, it wasn’t until he was working on “The Fifth Element” with “Valerian” illustrator Jean-Claude Mizihres that he even considered taking it on.

“He’s the one who said, ‘Why don’t you do Valerian?’ I never thought of it before,” Besson says.

Besson wouldn’t acquire the rights for another 10 years. It wasn’t until he visited James Cameron on the set of “Avatar” that he realized a film adaptation of “Valerian and Laureline” was even possible, technologically speaking.

And they’ve taken their time with it. Besson did a large number of character and world sketches himself. He created a bible with five-page descriptions of all the creatures. Both secured a historic collaboration between the two visual effects giants WETA and ILM to do the 2,700 VFX shots (“The Fifth Element” had around 200). And he found his perfect leads in two burgeoning stars: Cara Delevingne for Laureline and Dane DeHaan for Valerian.

“I definitely don’t want Schwarzenegger to play the part. I want someone human,” Besson says of DeHaan.

They shot the film in France on soundstages that Besson helped design. “We’re very proud to be able to bring such a big production to the country and to bring work to hundreds of people. There’s a real pride in that,” says Besson-Silla. As far as the money goes, Besson isn’t concerned. With international sales, he says the film is 90 percent covered.

“The risk is more psychological than the money. The risk is if we fail then you lose your reputation,” Besson says. “The money risk is almost zero.”