FANTASY COME TRUE: Filmmaker Luc Besson took more than a decade to realize his vision
Montreal Gazette BOB THOMPSON
Luc Besson hired 10 designers and then had them prepare separate visions of space without really knowing what the goal was.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets Opens July 21.
French filmmaker Luc Besson usually gets things done quickly. But it took him more than a decade of care and attention to realize his cinematic dream Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.
The movie is based on the French comic books Valerian and Laureline by writer Pierre Christin and artist Jean-Claude Mézières. The series enthralled Besson as a child growing up in Paris. As a 58-yearold, he’s finally promoting the English language version of the sci-fi fantasy.
The Besson movie features Dane DeHaan as Valerian and Cara Delevingne as Laureline. They are a squabbling but in-love couple who are also space detectives assigned to uncover a lethal menace at the gigantic space station named City of a Thousand Planets. If they don’t find the device, it might destroy the city and maybe the universe.
But some of the city’s inhabitants — made up of separate spheres for humanoids, robots, methane aliens and marine extraterrestrials — aren’t in the mood to co-operate with the investigators.
Co-stars include Clive Owen, Ethan Hawke, Herbie Hancock, Rutger Hauer, Kris Wu and singer Rihanna, who stands out as a shape-shifting entertainer.
CHRIS PIZZELLO/THE ASSOCIATED PRESSMartin Landau, seen here with his North by Northwest co-star Eva Marie Saint in 2009, died on Saturday of unexpected complications during a hospital stay in Los Angeles.
Martin Landau, the chameleon-like actor who gained fame as the crafty master of disguise in the 1960s TV show Mission: Impossible, then capped a long and versatile career with an Oscar for his poignant portrayal of aging horror movie star Bela Lugosi in 1994’s Ed Wood, has died. He was 89.
Landau died Saturday of unexpected complications during a short stay at UCLA Medical Center, his publicist Dick Guttman said.
Mission: Impossible, which also starred Landau’s wife, Barbara Bain, became an immediate hit upon its debut in 1966. It remained on the air until 1973, but Landau and Bain left at the end of the show’s third season amid a financial dispute with the producers. They starred in the British-made sci-fi series Space: 1999 from 1975 to 1977.
Landau might have been a superstar but for a role he didn’t play — the pointy-eared starship Enterprise science officer, Mr. Spock. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had offered him the half-Vulcan, half-human who attempts to rid his life of all emotion. Landau turned it down.
“A character without emotions would have driven me crazy; I would have had to be lobotomized,” he explained in 2001. Instead, he chose Mission: Impossible, and Leonard Nimoy went on to everlasting fame as Spock.
Ironically, Nimoy replaced Landau on Mission: Impossible.
CHRIS PIZZELLO/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS