Blockbuster or Bust? 'Valerian' Director Has High Hopes
Luc Besson, proven master of the sci-fi genre, bets his studio on a race of pricey, pearly aliens.
When Luc Besson’s now classic The Fifth Element arrived in theaters two decades ago, American viewers were stumped. The campy sci-fi romp, featuring Bruce Willis as a taxi driver reluctantly saving the universe, was called “one of the great goofy movies” by Roger Ebert, but it was also that year’s worst-performing summer film.
“We did a screen test in Arizona that was painful,” Besson remembers. “When the opera singer [played by Inva Mula] came out, the guy sitting next to
