Cara Delevingne, Dane DeHaan and Ethan Hawke star in time-travelling science fiction film based on French comic strip from the 1960s

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

The first trailer for Luc Besson’s latest film, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, has been released, with stars Cara Delevingne and Dane DeHaan piloting spaceships and battling monsters.

The 90-second trailer is light on dialogue but shows the time-travelling agents Valerian and Laureline encountering various CGI creatures on their mission to Alpha, a 28th-century city home to thousands of different species.

To a soundtrack of the Beatles’ song Because, the trailer hints at romance between the pair, with Laureline telling Valerian: “We get on just great … you flirt, I smile,” before punching him in the face.

The film is based on a French comic first published in 1967, Valérian and Laureline. It ran for 42 years and was hailed for its humanist political ideals and developed characterisation.

Besson said he has been a fan of the comic since he was 10 years old, claiming the character of Laureline was “probably the first woman I fell in love with”.

Luc Besson (@lucbesson) When I was 10, every Wednesday there was a comic book with 2 pages of #Valerian in, and I discovered it then. #AskLucBesson https://t.co/1GMpPlMCxH

Valerian’s budget of €197m (£171m) makes it the most expensive French film ever produced, far ahead of Asterix at the Olympic Games (€78m) and Besson’s 1997 space epic The Fifth Element (€75m).



Besson’s adaptation is not the first, however; an animated series called Time Jam: Valerian and Laureline ran for 40 episodes on French TV from 2007 to 2008.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets also stars Ethan Hawke, Clive Owen, Rihanna and Rutger Hauer, with John Goodman as the narrator. It is scheduled for release on 21 July 2017.