Gear up for this year’s most adventurous space odyssey as Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is coming to cinemas this Friday to take you on a rabble raising inter galactic escapade.
Starring Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne, Ethan Hawke and Rihanna, the sci-fi thriller is based on the French comic series Valerian and Laureline and directed by reverent French filmmaker Luc Besson.
Following the lukewarm box-office performances of Life and The Space Between Us, Valerian is the next outer-space movie in line, but promises a more visually engaging experience than any of the three.Here’s some interesting facts about the movie you may want to know.
1.Most expensive independent film ever
Given the astronomical volume of CGI and VFX used in the movie, the production budget would naturally be higher than any average movie. In fact, higher than any other movie!
Having expended an eye-watering $209 million, Valerian is the most expensive independent movie ever made. Director Besson accrued the hefty sum after he independently crowd-sourced and also shelled out from his own pocket.
Valerian is technically a French film – the director is French, producers are French, the distributors are French, music and cinematographers are French – so it is also the most expensive European movie to date.
A lot is running on the movie (financially), while the expectations are also equally sky-high.
2.The movie has more than 2700 VFX shots
The earlier point mentioned about the huge number of VFX shots. Well, here’s an approximate count of it.
According to the data collected, the movie involves more than 2700 VFX shots. Now that’s far higher than an average count. The lead pair DeHaan and Delevingne have also spoken about working with green and blue screens most of the time, in an interview last year.These impressive figures suggest the whole new level of visual treat which the movie brings!
Have you kept your 3D glasses ready?
3.The number of aliens too is damn high!
Valerian is set in a fictional space station called Alpha, where millions of creatures belonging to hundreds of races live in harmony. And by creatures, one can obviously mean one thing – aliens.Not just a few aliens, but 200 different varieties of them!
The idea behind this is to give a realistic feeling about the outer world where these creatures inhibit, but it also signifies the effort put in the world-building for this movie.
Now you know why so many VFX shots!
4.Valerian is spawned across just 24 hours
The movie may be high on outer universe adventure, but the whole narrative takes place over the course of just 24 hours.Valerian and Laureline, the main protagonists are sent to the ever-expanding metropolis of Alpha on a mission to retrieve a mysterious ‘convertor’ whilst they also have to fight off the menace of a dark force that threatens to destroy the city. All of this in just one day!
Though the movie clocks at 2 hours and 17 minutes, expect fine detailing of every aspect of the movie as a result of the 24-hour narrative.Co-produced by Luc Besson and his wife Virginie Besson-Silla, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets releases this Friday.
