For fifty years. Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mézières’ epic sci-fi comic Valerian and Laureline has influenced other space operas including Star Wars and The Fifth Element. Bringing Valerian to the big screen has been a decades-long dream for director Luc Besson, and that dream will come to fruition later this month when Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets hits theaters. But if Besson has his way, he’ll be staying in this fictional universe for the foreseeable future.
Nerdist’s Aliza Pearl recently had a chance to ask Besson about a potential Valerian sequel, and he immediately responded “I finished the number 2 already and I’m writing the number 3. I don’t know if we will do it, because it’s not up to me. It’s up to the audience if they like it.”
Besson noted that his friends discouraged him from jumping immediately into the sequel, before adding “I don’t care, I’m just happy to write it. I’m enjoying writing it. So I don’t even wait. I’m just writing for myself. I finished the [sequel] already, then I [got] bored a month ago, so I said ‘let’s write the third.'”
We certainly can’t blame him. The universe of Valerian and Laureline is immensely packed with strange alien worlds and interstellar adventures that are only lightly touched upon in the upcoming film. There’s a ton of source material for Besson to draw upon, so he probably wasn’t kidding when he told us that “I can write like 15 of them, just for fun.” We’d love to see that happen!
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets will be released on Friday, July 21.
Are you eager to see Besson tackle the Valerian sequels? Fire up your spaceships and share your thoughts below!
Image: Europa Corp
