Luc Besson talks “Avatar” inspiration at “Valerian” premiere

PanARMENIAN.Net - Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets director Luc Besson, who on Monday, July 17 walked the black carpet at The Chinese Theater, gave credit to James Cameron's Avatar as a main source of his inspiration, The Hollywood Reporter said.

Castmembers Cara Delevingne, Dane DeHaan and Rihanna joined the filmmaker at the Hollywood event to preview his latest sci-fi creation.

After seeing Valerian for the first time, Besson described to The Hollywood Reporter his initial reaction at the final product: “I was surprised. I didn’t expect that we could be at this high level of definition and creativity.”

He added that Valerian was a project he wanted to stand out and also create an entirely new way audiences see sci-fi and comic-inspired stories.

“If you want to come up with something, if you’re pretentious enough to say, ‘I’m coming with something new,’ come with something really new and different," said Besson. "I’d rather take the risk that people watch the film and are blown away and get lost because there is so much, but I don’t want to do the things that we see almost every week now. I just want to do something different because that’s what I want as a moviegoer, I want something fresh and new.”

“Luc’s imagination is so incredible and the fact that technology has finally caught up to that, [it's] the ultimate summer movie,” DeHaan told THR on the black carpet.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets bows in theaters Friday.