Angerz
Trakanon Raider
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Undoubtedly. Their story is mediocre, but combined with their lack of chemistry/poor acting, made it much worse than it would have been with better people in the roles.
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Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)
- Thread starter spronk
- Start date
Undoubtedly. Their story is mediocre, but combined with their lack of chemistry/poor acting, made it much worse than it would have been with better people in the roles.
Furry
WoW Office
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Thats the only problem with fifth element. The story is poor, its just BRUCE WILLLIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so it's a fucking amazing movie.
And curves lady was hot, but that whole movie is definitely the bruce willis show. I wonder how much they tried to push him into a roll and then bruce willis just directed that movie into what it became.
And curves lady was hot, but that whole movie is definitely the bruce willis show. I wonder how much they tried to push him into a roll and then bruce willis just directed that movie into what it became.
Royal
Connoisseur of Exotic Pictures
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Yeah this thing is going to end up getting comparisons to Ishtar unless foreign audiences go nuts for it and bail it out financially. An under $20 million opening weekend for a movie with over $200 million in production costs alone is not gonna be pretty. That's the kind of performance that ends careers.
Phazael
Confirmed Beta Shitlord, Fat Bastard
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The chick was ok, but barely. The dude was just fucking terrible on levels I have not seen outside of a made for sci-fi channel flick. Her trying to make banter with him makes her seem even worse. Like if you took the roguish guy and the lesbot 3000 from Dark Matter and put them in the roles, you would see immediate improvement levels of bad. Besson needs to have his career euthanized, between this and Lucy. And the main dude has had a serious string of flops and need to go back to selling jock itch lotion, or something. Throw the chick in some feel good lesbian movie where she shows off her tiny tits and she might save her career, I guess. Clive Owen phoned this thing in so hard I am surprised he was not depositing his checks on screen.....
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Szlia
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Accountants and investors care little about quality, they care about numbers. Lucy's budget was a very small number compared to Lucy's revenue, so it was easy for Besson to gather money for the much more expensive Valerian and, according to the man himself, to have almost all of this budget covered by distribution/diffusion sales before a single person even bought a ticket to see the thing.
Royal
Connoisseur of Exotic Pictures
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If this things looses someone or an assortment of someones north of $100 million then Besson is going to have a harder time getting his phone calls to future potential investors returned afterwards.
Vaclav
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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I've heard something along the lines of what Szilia said previously - any money he earned was gravy, it was already in the black (or damn near it) without even one ticket sold with how he leveraged advertising and such for it.
Royal
Connoisseur of Exotic Pictures
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Yeah between preselling the distribution rights, investors, and tax credits the studio is only on the hook for about 10% of the budget. Still, somebody is probably gonna end up taking a bath on this and it's going to be a lot harder for them to pre-finance a movie on this scale ever again.
Qhue
Trump's Staff
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I saw it, theater was virtually empty on opening weekend... not a good sign.
The movie was incredibly 'French'. Hell the first 10 or so minutes is just a long cold opening bit that went on waaaay longer than I expected. At one point I leaned over and asked "is this Avatar 2?" owing to the similarity between the Pearls and the Na'Vi.
The actor for Valerian, who you might remember as Harry Osborne for the Andrew Garfield era of Spiderman, was essentially meh. There were extended sequences that were pretty interesting vignettes, but the overall plot was somewhat disjointed.
Similar problem to Flash Gordon -- an old-skool scifi/fantasy property that is notable for the diversity of its crazy adventures and side-stories, but if you do right by those elements then you water down the core narrative. Flash at least has a solid core in the source material, Valerian does not.
The movie was incredibly 'French'. Hell the first 10 or so minutes is just a long cold opening bit that went on waaaay longer than I expected. At one point I leaned over and asked "is this Avatar 2?" owing to the similarity between the Pearls and the Na'Vi.
The actor for Valerian, who you might remember as Harry Osborne for the Andrew Garfield era of Spiderman, was essentially meh. There were extended sequences that were pretty interesting vignettes, but the overall plot was somewhat disjointed.
Similar problem to Flash Gordon -- an old-skool scifi/fantasy property that is notable for the diversity of its crazy adventures and side-stories, but if you do right by those elements then you water down the core narrative. Flash at least has a solid core in the source material, Valerian does not.
spronk
FPS noob
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The studio behind the movie, EuropaCorp, raised 90% of the films budget through distribution deals and rights but that also means they will basically see nothing from the movie, which I guess doesn't matter since its almost certain to flop hard. Its gonna need $400m+ to turn a profit and that is pretty much impossible at this point. Europacorp is still putting up most of the money for marketing too, which is $100m+ worldwide.
Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp Grasps for Sorely Needed Hit in ‘Valerian’
‘Valerian’: How Luc Besson Made a $180 Million Indie That Can’t Fail
But those people who paid $10-20m for their country aren't going to be that happy if it barely covers costs or loses a little money, they won't ever trust the people involved again.
Gods of Egypt is probably the closest comparison - movie costs covered by distributors before release, but still hurts the careers of everyone involved even if it makes no money.
And yeah the stars of Killjoy or Dark Matter would have probably been terrific for this instead of the euro models they got.
Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp Grasps for Sorely Needed Hit in ‘Valerian’
‘Valerian’: How Luc Besson Made a $180 Million Indie That Can’t Fail
But those people who paid $10-20m for their country aren't going to be that happy if it barely covers costs or loses a little money, they won't ever trust the people involved again.
Gods of Egypt is probably the closest comparison - movie costs covered by distributors before release, but still hurts the careers of everyone involved even if it makes no money.
And yeah the stars of Killjoy or Dark Matter would have probably been terrific for this instead of the euro models they got.
Phazael
Confirmed Beta Shitlord, Fat Bastard
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For being such a fan of the comic (which was culturally French and a throwback to old pulp era sci-fi serials of the early 20th century), Besson just completely fucked up in his attempt to use this IP. The characters are horribly miscast (Valarian is supposed to be an older he-man classic by the book soldier hero, Lorelai is supposed to be a super smart red headed 30 something who is a master manipulator and uses her looks to catch people off guard) and the story was about as boring and by the numbers as they could have gone with. 5th Element worked because it was well cast and had a larger than life cartoon feel to it during the entire movie. This thing tried to be serious at times and camp at others, which just never works. Also, the Rhiana cameo in the middle is one of the most forced things ever (in a movie filled with them) and just brought the entire film to a complete stop.
And again, the opening montage and the scene on the navi-ripoff world were amazingly well done and had an epic feel to them (minus the dubious use of subtitles in the latter). They were so good that they actually magnified how shitty the rest of the film was and I have to wonder if they were even done by the same film crew and writers. Of course that was also a big chunk of the problem. Besson basically wrote the thing himself and accepted zero outside input, which is always a recipe for shit movie making.
And again, the opening montage and the scene on the navi-ripoff world were amazingly well done and had an epic feel to them (minus the dubious use of subtitles in the latter). They were so good that they actually magnified how shitty the rest of the film was and I have to wonder if they were even done by the same film crew and writers. Of course that was also a big chunk of the problem. Besson basically wrote the thing himself and accepted zero outside input, which is always a recipe for shit movie making.
Gurgeh
Silver Baronet of the Realm
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Agreed, SF isn't always about the plot, sometimes it's just about describing a universe. It didn't need to be epic or anything, they just had to show the universe, especialy if they thought they'd make it a franchise.
Vaclav
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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That actually is pretty much how they did the movie. There was one real connecting thread between everything, but each "scene" could really have been it's own episode if it was done as a TV show format.
Angerz
Trakanon Raider
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I'd watch this series right now, call it "In the Year 2600..." or something and give me an anthology of this world. The Big Market scene would be great fleshed out to an hour show, even keeping the same premise of a smuggler or something doing a heist. I'd watch an episode about those federal agents we see in that scene too and their mind control gun. Or about the war above Mul. Or about Paradise Alley. Or the Fishing Dope Aliens that lived next door and just wanted to feed their king. Or Ahab and the Giant Sea Dinosaur Ticks with their Mind-Jellyfish Buddies. Or the Triplets going around telling people things. Or the Mech Biome that housed all the data.
Literally everything in this movie was more interesting than the movie.