Trivia / Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

• Billing Displacement: Rutger Hauer is given top billing despite his screen time being just one minute.
• Box Office Bomb: It had an estimated $177,200,000 budget and managed $224,600,000 in international box office totals. Notably, news publications were calling it a bomb in its first week of release, and its later numbers unfortunately didn't improve from there, and it earned a dismal $40.5 million at the US box office.
• Celebrity Voice Actor:
  • The French dub features Canadian actor/director Xavier Dolan as Valérian and French singer-songwriter/actress Stéphanie "Soko" Sokolinski as Laureline.
  • In the Japanese dub, Bubble's human form is voiced by comedienne Yuriyan Retriever and the Doghan Daguis are voiced by members of the folk rock band the Alfee.
• Creator Killer: The film's catastrophic box office performance resulted in Edouard de Vesinne being ousted as EuropaCorp's deputy CEO. The company has since gone into debt. It was bought out in 2020 by Vine Alternative Investments and Luc Besson is not a majority owner anymore, only retaining creative control on the future films for five years. Besson meanwhile is attempting a Career Resurrection with Dogman, which he will start to film in spring 2022.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: Elizabeth Debicki voices Emperor Haban Limaï.
• Cross-Regional Voice Acting: Voice actors from Paris (Barbara Webber Schaff^* Empress Aloi, Lee Delong^* Tsuuri, Chloé Hollings^* The computer voice and Elizabeth Debicki^* Emperor Haban Limaï) and America (John Goodman^* Iron Siruss, Robbie Rist and Christopher Swindle^* both as Doghan Daguis) were used for the film.
• Directed by Cast Member:
  • The Latin American Spanish dub was directed by Gerardo García, who also dubbed Guide Thaziit.
  • Rodolfo Bianchi directed the Italian dub and voiced the President of the World State Federation.
• Doing It for the Art: No matter what the result, it cannot be denied that Luc Besson adored this project. Valerian's opening scene is so crazy, Besson recruited an army of his own film students to explain it. He even waived his own salary in order to get the film made.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Cara Delevingne worked out for months to get in the right shape for the role.
• Fake American: Cara Delevingne (who is British) continues her long tradition of playing more Americans than Brits.
• In Memoriam: A dedication to Luc Besson's father, Claude Besson, appears before the ending credits. Claude died one year before the film's release.
• Milestone Celebration: The film's release coincided with the 50th anniversary of the original comic.
• Multiple Languages, Same Voice Actor: Alain Chabat (Bob), Pauline Hoarau (Aloï), Marilhéa Peillard (Tsûuri), Ola Rapace (Gibson), Stefan Konarske (Zito) and Peter Hudson (Crawford) reprised their roles for the French dub.
• Produced by Cast Member: Besides producing the Latin American Spanish dub, Magdalena "Nanny" Questa was one of the additional voices.
• Promoted Fanboy: Rutger Hauer's presence in the movie results in this for Luc Besson — who is a huge fan of Blade Runner.
• Real-Life Relative: In the Italian dub, brothers Oreste and Nanni Baldini respectively voice Jolly and Thaziit.
• Star-Derailing Role: Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne were both reeling from the lackluster reception their previous high-profile blockbusters, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 for DeHaan and Suicide Squad for Delevingne, received before they headlined this film in a badly botched comeback attempt. When it bombed, their hype sunk with DeHaan retreating to television afterwards while Delevingne refocused on her modeling career.
• Stunt Casting: Pop singer Rihanna as Bubble.
• Those Two Actors: Cara Delevingne and Dane De Haan also appeared in the period romance Tulip Fever, released the same year.

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