Luc Besson’s latest film Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets wasn’t exactly a hit, seeing how it took in less than $40 million at the domestic box office with a budget of $177 million, and was met with lukewarm reviews. Given these low returns we’re likely never going to see a Valerian sequel; however, Besson is instead heading back to one of his more profitable properties as EuropaCorp has announced Lucy 2 has been given the green-light.
Besson, who also created such hits as The Fifth Element and Léon: The Professional, has already written the script for Lucy 2. There is no release date for the film yet, but it’s said to be in active development.
EuropaCorp, the company Besson helped co-found, has begun to switch up their financial model after a series of box-office bombs, according Variety. The company has been known to take risks on certain properties — hence the reason Valerian even get made. Yet, after the flops of The Circle, The Transporter: Refueled, The Family, Shut in, Nine Lives and several others, EuropaCorp is changing their marketing strategy to simpler film making.
Which is why Lucy 2 makes sense, given that the film grossed over $126 million in the United States with a $40 million budget.
Lucy was released in the summer of 2014 with Scarlet Johansson as the title character. The film told the story of a woman, Lucy, who got caught up in the wrong end of a drug smuggle. When her boyfriend sells her out to some dangerous criminal overlords, Lucy has a new experimental drug surgically placed inside her stomach. The bag inside her accidentally explodes, exposing her to the drugs. However, these drugs aren’t the normal kind that would kill you — they actually make you smarter.
The drugs open up Lucy’s brain to allow her to use all 100% of it, rather than the 20% the film states that normal humans use (although that’s up for debate in the scientific community), and suddenly Lucy is running around and able to control or do pretty much anything.
Given the film’s ending, a sequel seems like a challenging idea. However, even despite Lucy also receiving lukewarm reviews, Besson is a master at original filmmaking and will likely come up with a believable enough idea for a sequel. Lucy may also be the closest thing we ever to get a Black Widow stand-alone movie, so we’re not complaining.
As of now, Scarlet Johansson has not yet signed on to the sequel. However, Luc Besson is working on some mystery project at the moment, meaning we have no idea when Lucy 2 will actually be released.