DEADLINE: So much of the recent San Diego Comic-Con was prepackaged and stage managed, but you gathered a bunch of journalists in the back of a bar, and showed us elaborate storyboards that introduced characters and the worlds we will see in Valerian. You said you thought you were ready to make the movie years ago, and then you saw Avatar and threw out your script because it was too safe and not groundbreaking enough. I found the vulnerability and ambition refreshing. As a filmmaker who hasn’t put himself on public display too often, how did you feel, putting yourself out like that?
BESSON: If it was not natural, I won’t be able to do it. But this is such an adventure for me, and I know it’s really a turning point. This is a huge film. It’s expensive. It’s in 3D. It’s on Imax. Usually, only the big studios are doing this kind of film, and only basically Spielberg, and Lucas, and Jim Cameron, and Peter Jackson are doing this kind of film. I’m not feeling pretentious; I’m just feeling excited to try to follow this guys because they’re my heroes. They’re my big guys. They impress me often, and I just want to play with them. So I’m overexcited, and I wanted to share that. It’s not the kind of adventure where I say to all my friends in the press and everyone else, let me be by myself and I’ll see you in two years. This is too big. I want to share, and I’d rather take the risk that, down the road, some people might betray me, because that’s the human nature, and I will be sad. But I’d rather take the risk and share with a couple of thousand who follow on Instagram or on the news through you.
DEADLINE: How large are the stake on this movie?
BESSON: It’s the first time in the history of cinema in Europe that we going to do this kind of film. The last example was The Fifth Element. It’s like telling someone you’re going to the Olympics and you’re going to race, and there is Usain Bolt next to you. And you say, fuck yeah, I want to run.
DEADLINE: All those filmmakers are friendly, but they trying to top each other with technology and techniques. France hasn’t been in that race…
BESSON: No, we haven’t. But what I really appreciate also is that the people we just named really like each other, respect each other, and work together. They’re not teachers, but they help each other, exchange, share. I want to be part of that. Jim, for example, has always been nice with me. I went to see him two years ago to ask him for some advice before I start Valerian. He’s always happy to do it. These are guys who want to see good films from everyone, they don’t just want to see their own films.
DEADLINE: Sounds like you want to earn your way into that elite club, and maybe raise the bar and think, how do I top that?
BESSON: Well, I won’t be as pretentious as that. I will do my best, that’s for sure.
DEADLINE: What did making The Fifth Element teach you as you take an even bigger challenge here?
BESSON: I learned two things. The Fifth Element was the last film to be made with old fashioned special effects, because the digital was not there yet. Six months later, you could basically do whatever you want, and they will take care of it, later. On The Fifth Element, I have to lock my camera for eight hours. We have to put dots on the walls everywhere. It was a nightmare. On The Fifth Element, I had 180 shots of special effects. On Valerian, I have 2,370.
DEADLINE: It sounds like even though you’ve got many more, that technology has improved to the point where maybe this is not much harder?
BESSON: It’s more manageable. On The Fifth Element, I have to use my brain to cheat, to say, OK, how can we do this thing when we don’t have the tools to do it? All my concentration was on that. On Valerian, I feel so free because the only limit is my imagination. That’s all. You can do whatever you want today, and one of the things I do have is an imagination. So I feel good. So that’s the first lesson, is that on term of script and ideas, I feel so much better now because I have no limit. So that’s the first thing.
The second thing is, when I prepped and worked on The Fifth Element. Everything was from Paris. I had Jean-Paul Gaultier, Jean-Claude Mezieres, lots of good artists, but at the end, when I released the film in U.S., I feel for the first time the difference of appreciation, of feeling, and I realized very late that the film was very European. The Fifth Element in the U.S. now is kind of classical; everybody still talks about it. But at the time, the film didn’t work so well here, when in the rest of the world, it was a huge hit. I am 20 years older, I have traveled much more, everywhere, a lot in U.S. and China. I think I will have a film here that feels much more global. It’s still France and European in a way, but it’s not so stacked.
DEADLINE: The situation you just described is one that studios are now comfortable with because overseas ticket sales account for more than 70% of a film’s revenue. If the film doesn’t do great here but crushes it overseas, that’s fine and movies like Hansel & Gretel get sequels because of overseas revenue. If you make Valerian feel less European, how do you guard against losing yourself when one of the things that makes you different is that you’re a European director?
BESSON: No, I won’t lose myself, but I’m not the same 20 years later, and what I see now is that there is way less difference between the audience in U.S., the audience in Europe, the audience in China, in Russia, everywhere. That’s because of the Internet and the new technology. This audience is…everybody has the jeans and T-shirts now, they all have the iPad, they listen to the same music. You used to eat sushi in Japan 25 years ago, but now it’s everywhere. I think everything’s much more global, and I evolve like everyone. So my film is not less European, or more American, or more Hollywood. I think the entire world in the last 20 years became much more altogether, you know?