New Valerian Trailer Explains What Cara Delevingne, Dane DeHaan, and Rihanna Are Doing Way Out in Space

Luc Besson’s long-held dream project looks quite dreamy indeed. A new trailer for Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is here, and the epic space opus looks to live up to its billing as the most expensive European movie ever made.

Valerian, based on a popular ’60s French graphic novel, stars Dane DeHaan in the titular role. He and Cara Delevingne play special operatives in the 28th century who work to keep the peace throughout the human territories. That peacekeeping mission gets a lot more difficult when Alpha, known as the City of a Thousand Planets and precious for being a place where beings across the universe have shared intelligence for centuries, is threatened, and Valerian and Delevingne’s Laureline have less than 10 hours to avert disaster. (Make no mistake, despite DeHaan’s character hogging the title, Delevinge’s Laureline is very much a co-hero). In the new trailer, we see the partners go from fun-loving space adventurers to somber heroes throughout the mission.

Rihanna also has a significant supporting role in Valerian, playing Bubble, a shape-shifting entertainer. She’s not a big presence in the latest trailer, but still, she’s memorable as ever. Clive Owen, John Goodman, and Ethan Hawke fill out the supporting cast, although they may not be so recognizable. Hawke, for example, plays a character named Jolly the Pimp.

Valerian, which Besson wrote and directed, is Besson’s return to the sci-fi genre after first transforming it with The Fifth Element. Most recently, Besson brought his ingenious flair to the sleeper hit Lucy, starring Scarlett Johansson in superhero mode. No doubt he’s working the same magic here.

From its trailer, Valerian looks like a visual feast of cosmic intrigue. The film—or, as we like to call it, the source material for many a future GIF—hits theaters in July.

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