French auteur Luc Besson is someone who does not work enough in the action and science fiction genre as a director. Yes, he pumps out endless films through his production company like LOCKOUT, TAKEN and THE TRANSPORTER but he has never done anything to equal the brilliance of LEON or THE FIFTH ELEMENT, seemingly concerned more with prestige pictures like THE LADY and kiddie animation. That could be about to change however with his latest venture.

In addition to an untitled Angelina Jolie starring action flick and gangster comedy MALAVITA, Besson has set up another project to write and direct which sounds promising. VALERIAN is based on a Gallic comic book series created by Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mezieres first published in 1967. The series focusses on Valerian, a spatio-temporal agent and his female partner as they travel through time and space in the 28th century. The comic is big and grand in the style of THE FIFTH ELEMENT as the artist also worked on concept art for that film.

Besson playing with time travel tropes on a massive scale sounds very appealing to me and Valerian as a character is described as the kind of anti-hero that Besson excels at. This one can’t go into production soon enough! Besson will produce through his Europa corp production company.

Thoughts? Share ’em in the Comments section or on Twitter @Starburst_Mag