Can 'Valerian' Save Itself in China?
by EG
During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in May, Luc Besson said that as he was making his big-screen adaptation of the French comic Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, he worried the source material would be “impossible” to film. Turns out he may have been right.
The most expensive indie film ever made, ringing up a $180 million price tag, Valerian has flopped at the U.S. box office with a dismal $17 million opening weekend. Since its release on July 21, it’s Taken in a total of just $18.8 million.
Now the film's backers — a mix of foreign investors and distributors that pre-bought release rights — is counting on a strong Chinese release date ahead of Spider-Man: Homecoming to help salvage the bottom line.
Valerian will open in China Aug. 25, giving the film a week before Dunkirk bows Sept. 1 and Spider-Man spins its web Sept. 8. Having Chinese multiplexes all to itself could help the film considerably. Valerian opened head-to-head with Christopher Nolan’s WWII drama in the U.S., which hurt its numbers despite a different demographic, and also competed with both Spider-Man and War for the Planet of the Apes, which were still going strong in theaters.
Read the rest of this article at The Hollywood Reporter.
Luc Besson has also directed Lucy and Taken.