Luc Besson

Luc Besson’s next sci-fi project is the ambitious, big-budgeted Valerian, aka Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, which currently stars Suicide Squad’s Cara Delevingne, Dane DeHaan and Clive Owen. The trio just welcomed a new member aboard, as Besson himself has announced the casting of R&B icon and sometimes-actress Rihanna, who most recently showed off her acting talents in the animated film Home.

Well, we probably could have seen this one coming. The trend of routing movie franchises to TV, the state of the Taken franchise, and NBC being … well, NBC, a young Bryan Mills is about to develop a very particular set of skills. That’s right, NBC has give a straight-to-series order for a prequel TV series of Luc Besson and Liam Neeson’s Taken, and it will find you. It will kill you.

Clive Owen has had a bit of a spotty career in recent years, but thanks to Steven Soderbergh’s Cinemax series The Knick, we’ve been reminded just how great Owen can be with the right material. Perhaps a new Luc Besson film will make good use of him, as the actor has joined Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne in the director’s new, high-concept sci-fi film Valerian.

Lucy was perhaps the biggest surprise hit of 2014. Luc Besson’s action-packed and totally bonkers sci-fi film starring reigning queen of sci-fi Scarlett Johansson was actually pretty delightful, but the ending didn’t really leave the door open for a sequel. Given that studios tend to let box office dictate the necessity of a sequel, Lucy 2 seemed inevitable, but Besson himself dismissed the idea and the world moved on — except now he’s changed his mind.

In the 1990s, Luc Besson looked like the next European director to take Hollywood by storm. Each of movies made a bigger impact in the U.S. than the one before it; La Femme Nikita, The Professional, and The Fifth Element. But just as he cracked through to the mainstream, Besson pivoted away from directing and became more of a mini-mogul, running his EuropaCorp production company and cranking out action flicks that he would often co-write and produce but not direct like District B13, Lockout, and The Transporter and Taken franchises.

Luc Besson is responsible for making Liam Neeson the action hero we all know and love, and it looks like he could possibly do the same for J.K. Simmons with The Lake — which will sadly not be directed by Besson, though he provided the screenplay. The Oscar-winning actor has joined the cast of Besson’s latest action thriller alongside 300: Rise of an Empire star Sullivan Stapleton.

“Is this the Transporter?” Those are the first words of this teaser for The Transporter Refueled, the reboot of the Euro-action series about the world’s best-dressed, most deadly delivery man. And I want to answer that question, no; this is decidedly not the Transporter. The Transporter is Jason Statham, or at least it was Jason Statham, through the franchise’s first three movies. Statham, alas, has departed, leaving Ed Skrein to assume Frank Martin’s black suit-and-tie-and-Audi.

This week, Scarlett Johansson (‘We Bought a Zoo’) stars as a character named Lucy in a movie called ‘Lucy.’ The advertising campaign makes Luc Besson’s new film look like a mainstream action film – and there is action! – but it’s not quite what you might think it will be.

Scarlett Johansson with super powers? No, it's not a Marvel movie. 'Lucy' is directed by Luc Besson, the guy behind 'The Professional,' and the newly released extended clip showcases another of the man's strong female ass-kicker. Just be warned, there's some blood.

We know most of us want to see Scarlett Johansson get her own solo Black Widow movie, but that's not gonna happen anytime soon. That said, how about another film about a female ass-kicker with superpowers? A new international 'Lucy' trailer is here to prove ScarJo is about to reach her full potential -- and afterwards all hell will likely break loose.