Kris Wu Yifan is certainly possessing a certain kind of talent because the former EXO member has been added to the cast of Luc Besson‘s upcoming sci-fi film, “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets“.
Besson himself announced Kris’ casting through his official Twitter account:
Excited to announce Kris Wu in @ValerianMovie! pic.twitter.com/Rb1EFkuhXg
— Luc Besson (@lucbesson) December 15, 2015
Kris’ role in Besson’s big-budget sci-fi film has yet to be announced, but he will star alongside Ethan Hawke, John Goodman, Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne, Clive Owen, and Rihanna.
Despite his ongoing lawsuit drama with SM Entertainment, Kris has been doing pretty well on his own as an actor/solo artiste. His role in Besson’s film will mark his first major Hollywood role since making his feature film debut through “Somewhere Only We Know“(有一个地方只有我们知道), a Chinese romantic drama film directed by Xu Jinglei.
The singer-actor also recently starred in “Mr. Six” (老炮儿) (previously known as “Fading Wave”), a Guan-Hu directed Chinese action comedy film.
“Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” will be based on “Valerian and Laureline”, a popular French sci-fi comic series that was first published in Pilote magazine in 1967.
With influences from the classic literary science fiction, writer Pierre Christin created the series with artist Jean-Claude Mézières. It follows the adventures of Valérian, a dark-haired spatiotemporal agent who travels the universe through space and time with his redheaded female companion, Laureline. All of the stories have been collected in a graphic novel album format, comprising of some 21 volumes plus a short story collection and an encyclopedia.
Though the final installment of the comic series was published in 2010, it is one of the top 5 biggest-selling Franco-Belgian comic titles of its publisher, Dargaud. It also became a landmark in European comics and pop culture as traces of its concepts, storylines and designs can be found on popular sci-fi films such as “Star Wars“, “The Fifth Element”, and “Avatar“.
Earlier in May, Besson confirmed that DeHaan and Delevingne will be playing the traveling agents in the movie. Owen will also be starring in it as a character named Commander Arün Filitt.
Best known for his work on “Leon the Professional” and the “Taken” franchise, Besson is writing and directing “Valerian”. The movie will begin shooting next month at a reported budget of USD180 million. Virginie Besson-Silla will produce on behalf of Besson’s production company EuropaCorp, which is financing, producing, and distributing the movie.
“Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” is due to be released on 21st July 2017.
Source: TheWrap.
