Will 'Valerian' Be the Biggest Bomb of the Summer?

EuropaCorp has been on a white-knuckle ride over the past three years, but the struggling French studio hopes that “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” will end its recent run of flops and propel it back into the box office stratosphere.

If the hugely expensive science-fiction epic flames out when it debuts this summer, it could be disastrous for the French studio behind  “Lucy” and “Taken.” Launched by director Luc Besson in 2000, the company had grand ambitions to become one of the world’s biggest film players. But EuropaCorp’s trajectory has taken a downward turn since it started self-distributing its movies in the United States in 2014. The results have been sobering. The studio has struggled to find hits, releasing one dud after another and losing tens of millions of dollars in the process.

The setbacks come as the company is preparing to release “Valerian,” the story of two space agents battling a dark force in the far reaches of the galaxy. The adventure didn’t come cheap. “Valerian” cost $180 million to produce, making it the most expensive independently financed movie in history — and that’s before counting its global marketing and distribution costs of at least $100 million. Rival studios and insiders estimate the film must make at least $400 million worldwide to climb into the black and justify a sequel.

Read the rest of this article at Variety.

Valerian will finish behind Dunkirk this weekend and may be beaten by the comedy Girls Trip, too.