Luc Besson’s sci-fi blockbuster Valerian has flopped at the box office. The roughly $200 million film, which airs today on RTL, could have launched a new franchise through the templates.
With Valerian – The City of a Thousand Planets, Luc Besson was allowed to let his handwriting run completely free. Years ago, he was even given an incredible budget of a good 200 million dollars for it, which led to a disaster at the box office. Valerian, which is showing today at 8:15 pm on RTL, flopped completely. That’s especially unfortunate because the comic templates would have made a new sci-fi franchise.
Watch another German trailer for Valerian here:
The sci-fi flop Valerian could have been made into a bigger series
The bizarre details in Luc Besson’s film, which include Cara Delevingne sticking her head in the back opening of a jellyfish and Rihanna putting on an estimated minute-long interlude as a shape-shifting erotic dancer, were probably too special for a larger audience. With a budget of just over $200 million, Valerian only recouped $225 million worldwide. As a result, the sci-fi production was booked as a massive flop.
Potential for a bigger franchise was there, as Valerian is based on a French comic book series by Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mézières that made it to 24 volumes and several special stories over five decades.
For his sci-fi blockbuster, Besson used volume 2 and volume 6 as templates, which left plenty of material for further parts. However, since the film was such a massive flop, you shouldn’t hold out much hope for a Valerian franchise anymore.
