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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.

I walked in with high hopes and walked out pining about the missed opportunity I had just watched. The visuals were excellent, the story was . . . okay (a bit convoluted) and overall I'm glad I saw it. The story could have been tightened up but to me the biggest failure was in the acting. I had heard negative things about DeHaan before seeing it but thought they might be exaggerated. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. DeHaan did not fit the role one bit. He looks fine but he is about as charismatic as a bucket of squash. His lines seemed forced and painful to watch. Pulling some kid off the street with no acting experience to play the role couldn't have been much worse. I thought Develingne was fine and as a previous poster mentioned. At least it seemed as if she tried. Had they found a better actor to play Valerian this might actually have been a really good overall movie instead of just a great visual experience. I found the dance scene with Rihanna to be a fantastic scene, truly mesmerizing. But speaking of acting . . . once Rihanna stopped dancing and had to open her mouth her contribution diminished rapidly. She's a singer, dancer and a lot of things but she isn't a very convincing actress . . . at least not yet. Given that, I would still put her performance ahead of DeHaan's. I like Sci-Fi so I would give this a B-. If you don't have a preference for science fiction and don't like those types of movies then stay far away. It's really its only redeeming quality. I hear Beeson has written sequels. Clearly with a thudding performance this has had at the domestic box office it seems unlikely they will ever happen. If they do though, I would strongly recommend replacing Dane with someone who has a personality that fits the role.

Hahaha Yeah, I guess John Carter IS the classical definition of a movie disaster. Overbudget, bad plot, bad acting, poor reception, etc, . . . it pretty much checks all the boxes!

This may come as news to you but elitists and fringe elements are not the target audience for Studios. Nor are they part of this argument since overall popularity is not limited to specific populations that just you approve of. It is always debatable. Spider-Man 2 is cannot be said to be the "consensus favorite" of the series. The facts at hand are that it was not the most popular Spiderman film at the box office (a 10-15% drop in attendance as the sequel of a beloved film?) despite the fact that at the time of it's release it was probably at the peak of popularity in US culture. There has never been any large scale poling of the general population on the issue (i.e. "Do you approve of the performance of the President?" and by the way "What Spider-Man movie was your personal favorite?"). Website polls measure their votes in the thousands (compared to the millions of actual viewers) and are found on websites that appeal to hardcore superhero or movie fans rather than represent the general population. And ESB may be the most popular of all the SW movies but even the Poll on Starwars.com shows that it has less than 39% of the overall vote. This means that 61% of the population (the majority) does NOT think it is the best movie in the series. So that could not be claimed as a "consensus favorite" either. I mean, you do understand that "consensus" means majority right? Maybe you aren't a native English speaker there's some confusion about the definition of "consensus". And perhaps that's the problem you are having. Based on the Starwars.com poll. The Empire Strikes Back is the favorite movie of voters because it has the highest individual percentage. However it is NOT a "consensus favorite" since it represents a minority of the overall voters.

This may come to a shock to you but a lot of people prefer Star Wars to the Empire Strikes Back. Now in large part this is because Star Wars was a standalone movie and ESB was a cliffhanger ending which was not as common and turned a lot of people off but that's the case. I think ESB was the best but it is hardly a consensus for the general public. Most films that are huge surprises collect goodwill that is seen in subsequent releases. I personally think that the first Pirates of the Caribbean and the first Transformers movies were the best (partly because or originality and partly because of superior stories) but they weren't the highest grossing entries in their respective sagas. Here's the key distinction. You can be the most critically acclaimed movie in a series and NOT be the most popular movie in the eyes of the general public. But to say that a movie is the "consensus favorite" when it is not the most popular movie in the series. It's just not the correct terminology. One of the strongest indicators of an items popularity is purchases. In this case tickets are purchases. When movies have great legs and make extraordinary runs it is not because the audience just had too much to do on earlier weekends or had plans for the first month of release. It's because they heard from family or friends about a movie and decided they wanted to see it themselves. For example, lets say that the sales of the Honda Accord exceeds the sales of the Toyota Camry but 15 out of 20 of your friends agree with you that the Camry is a superior vehicle. You might have driven both vehicles and believe that the Camry is the better vehicle but saying that the "consensus favorite" is the Camry would just not be a position supported by the facts. You would have to make a claim that even though the majority of people preferred the Camry they bought the Honda for some reason (and in this case ticket prices were not substantially different between 1977 and 1980). As anecdotal evidence, I saw Spider-Man 2 with around 50-60 parents and children at an IMAX theater as part of a YMCA event. The "consensus opinion" was that, while SM2 was enjoyable, it didn't have the same impact or quality as the previous movie. And when the word of mouth is "Yeah, it's good but not as good as the last one." you can expect a drop in tickets as that information disperses as a lot of people who aren't avid movie goes will just choose not to go. If the WOM had been that it was as good or better than the first I believe it would have sold another 5-6 million tickets at least.

Sure. Spider-Man 2 is the consensus favorite. That would explain why it sold 15% fewer tickets than Spider-Man. Less people went to see it because it was so much better, Not that the actual WOM was that it wasn't as good as the first one (which is exactly what happened as it started it's run ready to crush the BO of the.previous movie only to see that momentum quickly dissipate). "consensus favorite"? I don't think those words mean what you think they mean. Yeah, the critics liked it. Hell they also liked Spider-Man Homecoming which seemed like a movie in search of an identity to me. Which only proves that critics and the public are not one and the same. The only "consensus" is that Spider-Man 2 was better received than Spider-Man 3. You can argue which of the 6 films is number 2 or 3 but the masses voted with their wallets and the choice for number one is pretty clear cut.

Holy crap, you are right and I didn't even notice! There was no evidence that Parker has any of his Spider Sense. Instead he was given a high tech super suit by his new boss and mentor Tony Stark. Spider Senses has always been a core part of the Spidey superhero character. I can't believe they just ditched it for a female Jarvis. The more I think about it, this film was more like the TV series "Greatest American Hero" about a nice, mild mannered but good-hearted guy trying to figure out how his supersuit works than an actual Spiderman film.

I was disappointed. After all the talk on this board and ROT score I thought it would be more engaging. Some of the comedy made me laugh, Keaton gave a standout performance as the Vulture and Holland was fine in the lead. The problem was that, as written, the Vulture seemed too likeable, Spider-Man seemed too goofy and the Spiderverse in general just seemed like an unimportant, lighthearted, meaningless, side story in the Avengers Universe. And parts of the movie just dragged. I actually found myself yawning during a showtime at 4 in the afternoon. Combine that with the fact that the CGI of Spider-Man doesn't seem like it has progressed any in the last 15 years, the plane battle was too convoluted to follow the action and Spider-Man in general seems a lot less resourceful now that he needs his friends to help him hack computers and most of his cool gadgets were all built by Stark. And where was Zendaya? All that hype of her being in the film and that's all the screen time she had? She literally could have been written out of the movie entirely without notice. This movie was a C in my book. I was expecting so much better.

That's fine but it matters not. A great many people consider Spider-Man one of the best Superhero movies ever made. It had a huge box office, became a cultural phenomenon (merchandising, character awareness and popularity) and had tremendous word of mouth. Audiences cheered during the movie, clapped afterward and it was hard to get tickets in the 2nd and 3rd weekends of release. So you may not care for it but it was a beloved and impactful film for far more moviegoers than those who who found it disappointing. Most people like chocolate and find people who complain or constantly criticize it to just be weird and abnormal. Thus most people don't make a point of openly and publicly denigrating things that seem to be universally loved by the general population. It is fine to have a differing opinion but the more you point out to people how little your opinion matches the general population, the more it reduces the value of your opinions on all topics. You just become that "weird, outlier" guy who doesn't realize he's not normal.

Ouch! Not sure it needs to be thrown in his face but . . . yeah . . . it seems there is a disconnect between Nova's personal opinions and that of the general audience - at least in regard to these two movies. If that continues, hopefully he will rely less on his own opinions when making BO predictions. My guess he will probably go less on his gut feelings in the future and more on prior precedents and general trends. But hey, isn't that really what drives all the drama here? People thinking that their opinions reflect majority opinion and then getting upset and defensive when they realize they aren't "normal" in terms of reaction and interest? I mean if you obsess about movies and spend a lot of time on a box office forum then you are pretty much already part of a limited niche in terms of moviegoer. If the masses were completely predictable we wouldn't have any BO surprises and where would the fun be in that?

I've lived in 10 different states over my life (though for 2 I wasn't there during an Easter) and have never had an "Easter Monday" off. The only way I could see this happening is for children/teachers who might have their spring breaks scheduled for the week after Easter Sunday. Other than that . . . who is getting Easter Monday off? God knows my college spring breaks always seemed to be in early March. I can see religious schools automatically taking their Spring Breaks over the week after Easter Sunday and I have seen some schools just take the Friday before Easter and the Monday after for "Easter Break" but those are usually the exception. I'd be all for making the Monday after Easter a Holiday but . . . it hasn't happened yet. That being said, Easter 2016 was one of the earliest Easters I can remember (Late March?) so I suspect a lot of Spring Breaks just happened to fall the week after which helped boost the BvS numbers.