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EuropaCorp’s Stock Value Drops in Wake of ‘Valerian’s’ Poor Opening Weekend

How was this a surprise to shareholders at all?

They probably thought they were onto something. Comic book movie, great visuals, somewhat respected director. They might not have expected huge returns, but I don't think they expected it to tank either.

Why did this movie have such a large budget?

It's almost entirely CG if the trailers are anything to go by. The budget isn't that surprising.
 

Sesha

Member
Step one, make a good movie. That's it. They should have expected this after how Ghost in the Shell performed, which had a lot of similar things going for it.
 
despite some pretty decent reviews from the critics, the 2 obnoxious leads (at least from the trailers) already put me off of watching this movie.

I assume others are the same because of the same reason?
 

kmax

Member
Believed to be the most expensive independent movie of all time with a budget of $180 million
Besson says – it desperately needs the film to be hit as the company just posted record losses of 119.9 million euros ($135 million) for the fiscal year ending March 31.

Desparation is a recipe for disaster. Just ask gamblers.
 
Besson will be all right. Too big to fail. He'll always find someone to finance his work as long as the budgets are reasonable but no more sci-fi blockbusters for him I guess. But Europa Corp has been on the verge of collapse for a while, not sure if they can bounce back. Time to greenlight ten Taken sequels and Lucy 2. After GitS, I'm sure Johansson would welcome the idea.


I don't get why France is so obsessed with making movies in English language. It's kinda bizzarre and really weird considering how rude they act towards the language once you are in the country.

EuropaCorp makes horrible movies anyway. Hopefully, they will stick to making movies in French. It's rare a non native speaker of English can ever make good movies in it. Even The Professional is pretty crappy movie outside of the action scenes and Gary Oldman flipping out.

Lol, what nonsense. France produces hundreds of movies per year, maybe 1% of those are in english. Any filmmaker making a big budget film will chose to make that film in english for obvious reasons. But yes, it's "bizzarre" and french people are rude. Any other brilliant insights?
 
I loved Valerian. I believe the film will eventually find its audience. It won't end up as beloved as The Fifth Element, but will probably settle into a Speed Racer-esque level of fondness and home theater calibration success.

Some of ya'll asking about the budget -- watch the movie, every dollar is on screen.

I agree. It's lighter but still mixed in tone like that movie, but more loose, and as such not as engrossing as The Fifth Element, but I still really enjoyed it.

This. The visuals, CG, effects, etc. are stunning and "on camera" almost the entire runtime of the movie.

Like some others who have liked it have said, yeah Dane was only "okay," and an actor more charismatic and more smoothly serious/playful could have elevated some of the movie, meanwhile I really quite liked their Laureline pretty much the entire way through.
The one hiccup to me being equally with the writing for her abruptness at spelling out love in order to be able to sight the situation's examples of love in her attempt to convince Valerian she was right even without orders to give the little creature over being a little too on the nose and could have at least been written with a smoother more natural start to her speech, but it leading to her well-delivered "I want you to trust me" line was still good at the end of it and made up for some of that awkwardness.

The 4K HDR blu-ray is going to be jaw-dropping.

Speaking of Speed Racer, yeah really hope that eventually gets one too, those visuals with HDR highlights, whew.

Side-note for this and the BG&E2 E3 trailer:
The mega market was totally like a fully realized version of the place at the beginning of the recent Beyond Good and Evil 2 CG trailer, it looked fantastic.
 

Briarios

Member
For me, the problem was that all the advertised were the visuals ... There was really no connection to the story or characters through the trailers I saw. In turn, I felt like there was no reason to see it.

Whoever was in charge of marketing needs a different job.
 
Lol, what nonsense. France produces hundreds of movies per year, maybe 1% of those are in english. Any filmmaker making a big budget film will chose to make that film in english for obvious reasons. But yes, it's "bizzarre" and french people are rude. Any other brilliant insights?


Last year France spent more money on Hollywood movies than on French movies. I hope that does not displease or embarrass you but its true.

Of all countries, for France to make movies in English, comes across as hypocritical and bizzarre. Frankly, their obsession with English language culture is hypocritical considering their comically nationalistic attitudes towards language.

French directors don't seem to be able to handle English dialogue too well. That's my main issue. They don't get the nuance in the language, the correct tones and inflections. The horrific dialogue and delivery in Valerian more than proves this. Stick to making French movies, it works out better.
 
The Fifth Element was not a bad film. On the contrary, it was a veritable masterpiece. But it was also a fluke. Besson's body of work is a mountain of mediocrity with a couple of fantastic films in between and it's been ages since he released anything worth a shit, which is why I'm actively avoiding Valerian.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luc_Besson_filmography
he's not directing that much anymore anyway.

But somehow many of the films that his name is attached to, especially as screenwriter, jive with me. Even though I wouldn't call them great films necessary, I just like them.
(Taxi, Kiss of the Dragon, The Transporter, District 13, Unleashed, Colombiana etc.)
 
Last year France spent more money on Hollywood movies than on French movies. I hope that does not displease or embarrass you but its true.

Of all countries, for France to make movies in English, comes across as hypocritical and bizzarre. Frankly, their obsession with English language culture is hypocritical considering their comically nationalistic attitudes towards language.

French directors don't seem to be able to handle English dialogue too well. That's my main issue. They don't get the nuance in the language, the correct tones and inflections. The horrific dialogue and delivery in Valerian more than proves this. Stick to making French movies, it works out better.

You're hilarious, haha. What did we do to you? Did you have a bad tourist experience in Paris or something?
I think the obsession is on your side.
Of course french people love Hollywood films. I certainly do. Like everybody else in the world. And once in a blue moon a french director will make a movie in english to try to reach a wider audience. Big deal. There's nothing weird or hypocritical about it. And you don't have to watch it.

We're not one block of people sitting around drinking wine while musing about the superiority of the french language and french cinema. You seem to have a hilariously bigoted and ignorant view of France.
 
Shame film doesn't sound good, I feel really bad for non-hollywood studios.

I don't want everything to be Disney or other large corps. No.
 
I watched Valerian in Belgium and was entertained. It's a ridiculously creative and beautiful movie. But yes, DeHaan sucks and kills any emotional part. Cara is okay.

Will still buy on bluray and in 4K once I get that. Again, it's BEAUTIFUL.
 

UCBooties

Member
I loved Valerian. I believe the film will eventually find its audience. It won't end up as beloved as The Fifth Element, but will probably settle into a Speed Racer-esque level of fondness and home theater calibration success.

Some of ya'll asking about the budget -- watch the movie, every dollar is on screen.

I'm not so sure. I am a big fan of both the Fifth Element and Speed Racer but I found Valerian to be too inconsistent and too lacking in emotional stakes. I really couldn't get into it at all, despite really appreciating a lot of the visual style. It just seemed to be such a sloppy script and neither of the leads really worked for me.

There were some great ideas in the movie and as noted, the visuals are top notch, but I just felt the movie really failed to stick the landing. Too bad because I wanted to see Luc Besson get to make his passion project and the comics are landmarks of Space Opera. I don't know if this movie ever could have been a widespread hit, but I think the elements were there to make something much better than what they managed.
 
You're hilarious, haha. What did we do to you? Did you have a bad tourist experience in Paris or something?
I think the obsession is on your side.
Of course french people love Hollywood films. I certainly do. Like everybody else in the world. And once in a blue moon a french director will make a movie in english to try to reach a wider audience. Big deal. There's nothing weird or hypocritical about it. And you don't have to watch it.

We're not one block of people sitting around drinking wine while musing about the superiority of the french language and french cinema. You seem to have a hilariously bigoted and ignorant view of France.

https://youtu.be/1GXkl10VIn8?t=207
 
For me, the problem was that all the advertised were the visuals ... There was really no connection to the story or characters through the trailers I saw. In turn, I felt like there was no reason to see it.

Whoever was in charge of marketing needs a different job.
Whoever was in charge of composing the script and hiring the actors needs a different job. This movie was such a disappointment.
 
Sheesh. Some of the lines were pretty corny.

I haven't seen the film but from what I hear he definitely needed to collaborate with somebody to tighten the script and improve the dialogue. Not to mention, he needed to cast better leads.

Dane DeHaan is not leading man action movie star material.
 
It's funny to see people recommend Pratt as a big star, considering that he was a complete nobody before being cast out of nowhere in a huge movie based on an obscure comic book...
 
How was this a surprise to shareholders at all?

By comparison, “Lucy,” which cost $40 million to make, grossed $43.8 million during its opening weekend in the U.S. and went on to take $463 million worldwide

If Lucy can make $463 million anything is possible
 
Besson has always been in need of a co-writer with a strong personality. That's why his first movie, Le Dernier Combat, which he co-wrote and co-directed with Pierre Jolivet, is still one of his best. He's very creative but he can't write dialogs.

And yeah, casting DeHaan was a huge mistake from the start. Going from 90s Bruce Willis to DeHaan is a serious downgrade in charisma. He's a good actor, just not a blockbuster leading man.


At least one person on earth is thankful to the french government for something!
That was an interesting interview actually, thanks for the link.
 
Yes, but it was Marvel.

Leaving that out makes your post somewhat disingenuous.

Obviously Marvel had a lot of successes to build Guardians from, I'm just saying that it's not that ridiculous an idea. Heck, even Iron Man was risky ten years ago - RDJ was pretty much a has-been and the IP was tiny outside of hardcore comics fans. Obviously it was a risk and this time it failed, but it could have blown up.
 
Obviously Marvel had a lot of successes to build Guardians from, I'm just saying that it's not that ridiculous an idea. Heck, even Iron Man was risky ten years ago - RDJ was pretty much a has-been and the IP was tiny outside of hardcore comics fans. Obviously it was a risk and this time it failed, but it could have blown up.

It wasn't as big of risk that you think it was due to the success of Marvel properties (Spider Man with Sony, and X-Men with Fox).

Now don't get me wrong, they had to make a good movie; but the demand for Blockbuster Superhero movies in the marketplace had already been proven.
 

TheRed

Member
I enjoyed the world they created and it looked beautiful. But yeah the guy they picked for Valerian was fucking terrible. There was never a moment to make him endearing at all, his acting was so bland. The girl was actually pretty good even though from previews I thought I'd be distracted by her eyebrows but really she owned the character and made it her own while the guy was just a dull vacuum of charisma that was always with her.
 
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