Luc Besson announced his return to sci-fi at Venice with a warning: bring a ticket and an aspirin
Luc Besson’s diving back into sci‑fi with a “crazy” new film — and, yes, it comes with a rather bizarre warning.
French director Luc Besson has never done things by halves. Whether he's throwing Bruce Willis into a flying taxi in The Fifth Element or sending Scarlett Johansson brain-first through the entire universe in Lucy, Besson's brand of sci-fi is all about spectacle, excess, and madcap visuals. After a stretch away from the genre, he's plotting his return to the big, baffling cosmic stuff, and it honestly sounds completely bonkers—even by his standards.
Besson's Weirdest Detour Yet
After his maximalist space adventure Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets landed in 2017, Besson took a sharp sidestep away from science fiction. Since then, he's had a go at crime-laden spy flicks (Anna), a gritty melodrama about a marginalised dog-lover (Dogman), and, just recently, an over-the-top gothic reimagining of Dracula. If you thought he’d leave all the neon and flying cars behind for good, apparently not. At 67, Besson is now gunning for what he describes as his 'craziest' sci-fi venture yet.
A Ticket... and an Aspirin?
Besson revealed the project at a masterclass during the 2026 Venice Film Festival, keeping all actual story details under strict lock and key. Instead of even a whiff of plot, Besson issued a slightly odd public service announcement, warning the audience that his next sci-fi outing might be a tad overwhelming and fans should probably brace themselves:
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He joked to the crowd, 'You’ll need a ticket and an aspirin at the same time.'
Besson, ever the showman, doubled down on promises of pure mayhem, saying flat-out: 'It’s going to be crazy, believe me.' He even admitted he's in a different headspace these days, adding that being older means he’s now keen to 'explore everything.'
Film Tech: Then vs. Now
On the subject of how much the filmmaking world has changed since his earlier outings, Besson tossed out a genuinely wild comparison: back in 1997, The Fifth Element only needed 182 VFX shots. By the time he put together Valerian twenty years later, the total had ballooned to a whopping 4,000. Still, you won’t catch him moaning about new tech or having an existential wobble over AI. Instead, he painted a colourful picture of keeping the creative upper hand even as the tools get wilder:
He reasoned, 'I know lots of people are afraid of AI. But it’s a tool! Don’t be afraid. It’s a tiger – but you are a guy with a whip, speaking German to it.'
- In 1997, The Fifth Element racked up just 182 special effects shots, while Valerian took the cake with 4,000 effects in 2017.
Story specifics are still under wraps, but if Besson’s antics and warnings are anything to go by, whatever he’s cooking up is likely to be completely unfiltered sci-fi chaos—possibly fun, possibly confusing, definitely not subtle. You’d best keep an aspirin handy.
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