New Image For Valerian Places Dane DeHaan In The Driving Seat

Mere hours before Valerian lights up Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con, EuropaCorp has premiered a new image for the Luc Besson sci-fi that places Dane DeHaan in the driving seat.

DeHaan, who made his breakout in Josh Trank’s Chronicle before continuing that superhero streak in Sony’s Amazing Spider-Man franchise, will take point as the title character in Besson’s ambitious adaptation, one that mines inspiration from the eponymous comic book series.

Valerian is one half of a pair of special time-travelling operatives, a title DeHaan’s lead shares with Cara Delevingne (Suicide Squad), who is on board in the role of Laureline. Clive Owen, Ethan Hawke, Rihanna, 10 Cloverfield Lane star John Goodman and Rutger Hauer currently line the supporting roles.

While there’s no question that Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets harbors truckloads of promise, big-budget, fantastical science fiction that plays well with the masses has proven to be a difficult butterfly to pin. For every Avatar, there’s a John Carter – or Tomorrowland or Jupiter’s Ascending. Until the first trailer drops, though, we’ll remain cautiously optimistic.

Aligned as a potential new franchise at EuropaCorp, the official plot teaser champions Delevingne and DeHaan as a spacefaring pair of operatives tasked with defending “a utopian 28th century Earth and its neighboring planets from bad guys, with the pair’s adventures rooted in space opera and time travel themes.”

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets will light up Hall H later today, where we fully expect to lay eyes on the reveal trailer for Luc Besson’s ambitious sci-fi yarn. It’ll race into theaters exactly one year from today.