The English-language, French 3D sci-fi action and adventure epic film, "Valerian and the city of a Thousand Planets" is set to be released in China on August 25.
Deadline reported that the movie directed by Luc Besson has been granted an access to the Chinese film market on late August. According to the online media company, China is a hoped-for key play for the expensive sci-fi movie especially that it is not playing well in the Western countries.
The Cara Delevigne and Dane DeHaan-starrer movie opened to $17M in United States last week and has garnered $23.5M on the 16 offshore markets. It has established box office records on Germany, particularly in France where it garnered 375,400 admissions on 970 screens for the total of $3.72M.
The movie has received mixed reviews from several critics. Some praised the visuals while others criticized the plot and the casting. Rotten Tomatoes has approved the film with a rating of 51 percent based on 193 reviews and an average of 5.5/10.
Meanwhile, other film critics discussed the reason why "Valerian" crashed and did not topped the box office. In a report by Deadline, film critics said that aside from the expensive production cost, which is $205M, the movie was released on a later date in July.
"It's upsetting given Besson's time and investment here, and he deserves credit for being audacious and getting his vision made outside the studio system," Deadline cited in a report. "Besson was always in front of the film promoting it, showing off concept drawings to the fanboy press two years ago here at Comic-Con, returning again to San Diego last year, flying back to the states with star Cara Delevingne for CinemaCon in March to talk up the film to exhibitors; the director never mailed in promoting this film."
