Luc Besson’s ‘Valerian’ Calling On Aspiring Artists: Another ‘Fifth Element’ Fashion Statement?

This is different. Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp has teamed with Yahoo Style in a global search for “innovative and original” costume designs to appear in the helmer’s sci-fi epic Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets. Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne, and Clive Owen are starring in the project — and evidently need to be dressed in a truly original way. Europa and Yahoo Style are launching a contest that invites artists to submit their designs for use in the film, which begins shooting in Europe in January 2016.

Besson previously gave us deep-diving (and emotional) chic with 1988’s seminal Big Blue; and with 1997’s The Fifth Element ushered in the Band-aid dress via Milla Jovovich’s lead character. With an open call, this one could create yet another fashion statement.

EuropaCorp has set a July 21, 2017 worldwide release date for Valerian which is the adaptation of the iconic French sci-fi series from writers Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mézières that first appeared in 1967. DeHaan and Delevingne will play Valerian and Laureline, a pair of spatio-temporal agents who help defend a utopian 28th century Earth and its neighboring planets from bad guys.

“Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets encompasses a diverse array of characters from all parts of the universe,” says Besson. “I believe the world we live in is filled with people from all walks of life who possess an abundance of creativity and untapped potential. My hope is that by offering a contest like this to artists worldwide, we will gain access to inspired and original creations from a plethora of fresh perspectives, and the film will benefit from this collaboration.”

The contest opens today. Winners will be announced December 14.