Movies

The Avocado Movie Club #3: Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)

This is our first Flopbuster (thank you to whoever used this term first when picking movies), Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets!

Valerian is a bit of a return to the French comic inspired sci-fi style of Luc Besson’s older movie, The Fifth Element. It’s based on the French comic, Valérian and Laureline, about a pair of “spatio-temporal” agents and their intergalactic adventures, with Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne starring as the titular characters. It was funded through a rather wide variety of sources, with most of it coming from “foreign pre-sales, equity financing and tax subsidies”1, and Luc Besson even waived his own salary, resulting in a final budget that’s been reported to be anywhere between $150-220 million, making it the most expensive indie film, and the most expensive European film, ever made. 

It was released in the summer of 2017 to mixed reviews, scoring a 47% on Rotten Tomatoes, and ended up being a major financial flop as it earned $226 million in the worldwide box office. It had a disastrous opening weekend in the US, where it opened at 5th place and made only $17 million during its first weekend, and around $41 million total in the domestic market. It fared a bit better internationally, earning around $185 million, but it wasn’t nearly enough to make it a success.2

Trivia:3

  • There are 200 species of aliens in the film, described in a 600 page book that the actors were said to be required to read before filming.
  • The first time a song by The Beatles was used for an advertisement was the use of “Because” in this movie’s first two trailers. 
  • It is loosely based on the sixth volume in the comic series, Ambassador of the Shadows.

What did you think? Share your thoughts below! 

Up Next: Barry Levinson’s sci-fi thriller, Sphere (1998), based on the Michael Crichton novel of the same name. The next discussion thread will be on the 23rd! Here’s where it’s playing:

USA

  • Stream: Hoopla
  • Rent or Buy: Amazon, Apple TV, Microsoft Store, Google Play, YouTube, Fandango At Home

Canada

  • Steam: Hoopla
  • Rent or Buy: Amazon, Apple TV, Microsoft Store, Google Play, YouTube, Cineplex Store 

UK

  • Stream: No streaming options 🙁
  • Rent or Buy: Amazon, Apple TV, Microsoft Store, Google Play, YouTube, Rakuten TV, Sky Store
  1. https://www.boxofficemojo.com/article/ed878707716/ ↩︎
  2. https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl3044902401/ ↩︎
  3. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2239822/trivia/ ↩︎