Opening this week is French director Luc Besson’s latest film, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. The $180 million dollar sci-fi epic is both the highest budgeted independent and French film of all-time. While the title is unfamiliar to the casual movie goer in North America, the film is actually based off of a 50 year old French comic book. On the surface, it would seem strange for Besson to follow up his previous film, the international Scarlett Johansson hit Lucy, with a sci-fi film, but this kind of genre hopping has been a staple of Luc Besson’s career.