Rihanna Boards Luc Besson's Sci-Fi Action Film VALERIAN
Luc Besson made a splash with the Scarlett Johansson thriller Lucy last year, but the director is returning to large-scale science fiction in a big way with his $180 million epic Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, and the Fifth Element director just announced his latest cast member on Instagram:
Rihanna, who has acted in Battleship, This is The End, Annie, and DreamWorks Animation's Home, apparently "has a big part" alongside lead actors Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne.
The film, which Besson has been wanting to make for years, is based on the 1967 French comic by writer Pierre Christin and artist Jean-Claude Mézières. The story centers on Valerian (DeHaan) and Laureline (Delevingne), agents who protect people from rogue time travelers.
Valerian and Laureline are exploring Syrte, capital planet of a system of 1,000 worlds. Their mission is to discover whether the Syrtians could present a danger to Earth. What they find is a decaying empire led by decadent aristocrats, a population ripe for revolution, and a mysterious caste of masked wise men who discreetly pull the strings from hidden fortresses. Swept up by the winds of history, the agents of Earth will have to choose a side.
Clive Owen is also a part of the cast, playing the role of Commander Arün Filitt.
I haven't been impressed with Rihanna's acting career so far, but maybe this will be an opportunity for her to showcase a side of her we haven't seen before. At the very least, I'm hoping this is return to form for Besson, who, apart from Lucy, hasn't directed a movie that hit big in America since the late '90s. What do you all think? Is Rihanna a better actress than I'm giving her credit for?