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Valerian's failure causes Eurocorp to refocus it's future moviemaking efforts. Entertainment trade magazine Variety said there would be no more attempted French blockbusters, with future Europa­Corp films expected to cost a maximum of £27 million ($45.6m). That is a fraction of the £175m — a European record — that was spent on Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. ....... French magazine Le Point described the movie as a “stinging failure”. France Inter, the state radio station, denounced it as a “fiasco”. Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp meets its Waterloo

[mod edit] I liked the movie. Hell, I'm one of the few people who actually went to the theater to go watch it. I even gave it a positive review in the review forum. But it doesn't seem like you are very good at being able to determine fact from fantasy. For example, if you believe this movie was a financial success, that's only in the deep dark recesses of your reality detached mind. If you still don't believe how bad the reception and interest of Valerian was . . . just look at how few people post on or read this thread.

EuropaCorp Deputy CEO Ousted After 'Valerian' Failure Apparently, despite the claims by some on this board that the creative financing of this movie made it a successful venture, the shareholders aren't happy about the box office failure of Valerian.

Is English not your first language? You seem to be having a hard time understanding this topic. It's like you are replying to a conversation you are holding with yourself rather than any point I made. Valerian lost money for Eurocorp . . . a LOT of money. This idea you have that there are investors who are happy to throw money away for tax benefits and it really is a win/win for the Studio . . . errrr . . . okay. If you are right we will see a sequel. But until we do I'm going to file your depiction of an uber-creative, mathematically unsound, money laundering style European film industry under the "I don't really give a flip" category. If they announce a Valerian sequel I'll re-evaluate my opinion of your sanity. And with that I'll bid farewell from this fascinating . . . . ehhh . . . . well . . . . actually pretty boring and needlessly redundant . . . . discussion.

Listen, you don't have to try and prove your fuzzy math for film financing in Europe. You keep going off track. Let's refocus for a moment. Besson already publicly announced that the screenplays for the next two sequels to Valerian were either underway or completed. If Valerian WAS actually financially viable then we'll see a sequel. If NOT, we won't. You can believe whatever you want for now but time will tell whether your speculation is accurate or not. You already know which side I stand on.

This is Besson's pet project. He had already written and planned to film several sequels as part of his master vision. He's been very open about wanting to take these characters to the big screen for years. If there is any way humanly possible to produce more in the series Besson is ready and willing. If this film really DIDN'T lose money for the main figures involved then we'll undoubtedly see more Valerian film's on the horizon. And if we don't . . . I guess we'll really know what happened then huh? There is no need to continue to speculate about the miracles of creative financing when all we have to do is wait for our answer.

So your point is . . . . . ????? This movie is a success and we are going to see sequels? Because this is a "Valerian" thread, not a Besson accomplishments thread.

You are being very generous. The only consequences are reputational??? First off, the actual contracts are not public knowledge so the details are mere speculation and no publicly shared company is going to admit how bad something is for fear of hurting their stock. Public statements from different parties seem to indicate that Europacorp is actually on the hook for the marketing portion in some countries (which can be considerable in today's market). But nonetheless, when you are attempting to forge future contracts with entities who have lost money when dealing with you before . . . good luck. The damage will be significant when trying to raise capital for future project, trying to distribute future films, etc. For a smaller, independent studio those kinds of relationships are life and death. And to clarify, the "initial" figures were bad. The subsequent figures were poor. Where is the big success? France? It is doing fine in France even if it is not doing as well as Beeson's Lucy after the same release time. Now if Valerian had a budget closer to Valerian, it wouldn't be considered a flop. It isn't "the biggest bomb in history" but it's international take is disastrous when compared to what was expected and what was needed to make this profitable (after collapsing in the North American market). It doesn't look to make even close to what Lucy made despite costing over 4 times as much to make. So I'm not sure what your position here is. Mine is simply that this movie is not doing well, is going to lose money for a lot of people and will be one of the bigger disappointments of 2017. If you disagree with me, fine. Feel free to state why you do so.

I appreciate your blind devotion to this film. I too was hoping it would be a success. However, the writing is on the wall. We already know that it is somewhere between a financial and box office disappointment and unmitigated disaster. The question isn't how much money the film will make it is how much it will lose. This film was intended to kickstart a series of movies with the same characters. Instead it will be known as the movie that served as a warning about created high budget and bloated Sci Fi movies on properties with only regional popularity. If you want to convince us this is REALLY a success just let us know when they will announce the sequel. And no one who follows budgets would ever claim that making $250-300 million dollars on a movie with a budget of $150 million Euros ($175 million) is a good return. Especially if a large portion of your box office comes from countries like China where you get a much lower percentage of the box office revenue. And that's assuming it even does well in China . . . which does not seem likely.

I'm glad I didn't watch this in the theater. It was okay but far below the original in my opinion. Hemsworth channeling his inner Beetlejuice might have been the highlight of the film but even that seemed like it should have been funnier. Hemsworth was probably the funniest of all the characters which was disappointing (not because Chris wasn't that funny but given that you had great comedic talent in the other leads that just didn't shine). Some jokes hit but a lot seemed to miss. I also thought it had much more violent undertones and lost the lighthearted feel of the original movie. The discussion of ghosts ripping off the limbs of children and then slicing their parents in half, Bill Murray's character being killed by being thrown out a second story window onto the street below, the much more in-depth fight scenes between the GBs and the ghosts, etc. I mean some of that stuff is f**kin dark man!!! Part of the charm of the original is that the threat of ghosts was never really "terrifying". The new "people killing" brand of ghosts might of been meant to add more tension but it also seemed to contribute to the fact that this wasn't a movie that would appeal as much to children as the original. Then again, maybe children aren't as big of an audience now as they were back in 1984. I'm not sure that the comedic talent they assembled for this cast is capable of making a really great comedy that isn't rated R and for adults only. So maybe the issue was casting. When the funniest character in the movie turns out to be someone who isn't known for his comedies . . . it had to be either the writing or the casting that came up short . . . maybe both. While I felt the new group of GBs had a closer bond than the original group it didn't seem that they had the same ability to bring out the humor in each other. The interaction between the original cast, even when there was very little said, is what made the team so fun. And again, maybe because the first movie was more lighthearted allowed a level of play that this one didn't (due to the serious overtones). Either way, it was an okay to spend an hour or two watching but if I hadn't watched it I wouldn't have been missing anything memorable.

Wow, what an international disaster. I didn't think it was a great movie by any stretch but I still enjoyed it.

I loved the original premise. I thought the acting was a strong point in the movie. Hathaway was excellent and Sudeikis knocked it out of the park. It was slow in a few parts and I think some aspects of the story weren't as effectively addressed but all in all a good flick.

A lot of great 80s songs, a lot of great fight scenes, a great performance from McAvoy and a pointless, convoluted plot that makes less and less sense the more you think about it. The best suggestion is to ignore the plot altogether or it will just bring the rest of the movie down. I give it a B. Worth seeing but while those fight scenes would have been incredible 5-10 years ago the standard of excellence has increased significantly since then. A fine but forgettable film. Perhaps with a better plot or an actual twist at the end that made sense it would have been a classic.

Well, the critics got me again. Here I go walking into a film expecting a great experience and just like Spiderman Homecoming I end up thinking . . . . "meh". I put it above SMH but it just never grabbed me. I was expecting a movie to depict the scale of this historic event. That's what bothered me the most. Maybe it was because they refused to use CGI but it just seemed like watching the battle on a smaller scale. As if what you would expect if 30,000 troops were being evacuated by dozens of private vessels and commercial ships rather than 300,000 soldiers being evacuated by hundreds and hundreds of small and larger craft. But ehhh . . . I guess if Nolen wanted everything to be real instead of added digitally he would have to cut the scale considerably. The stories were fine. I found the aviator portion to be, by far, the most fascinating. To me the heroism at Dunkirk are those sailing the civilian ships into a war zone and the desperate defense of the French to buy the British enough time to escape. To me, neither one was really portrayed to my satisfaction (one not at all). I guess having George die was sort of a symbol of the sacrifice of the British civilians but that death just seemed a bit too contrived. I'd say a B-. Some great, some ehhhh, and an important historical event transferred to the big screen.