Editing Luc Besson (section)

===Studio ambitions and failures===

{{main|EuropaCorp}}

In 2000, Besson superseded his production company by co-founding EuropaCorp with Pierre-Ange Le Pogam, with whom he had frequently worked since 1985. Le Pogam had then been Distribution Director with [[Gaumont Film Company|Gaumont]].

With EuropaCorp, Besson wanted to compete with the American major studios, but to maintain a stable of French directors and technicians producing in France, even if their films are most often in English with a foreign international star in the [[Leading actor|lead role]]. EuropaCorp went public in 2006 to finance, with the help of the State, its own studios at the [[Cité du Cinéma]]. It also sought financing and distribution partnerships in Japan and China.

By 2011, when he directed a biopic of [[Aung San Suu Kyi]] called ''[[The Lady (2011 film)|The Lady]]'' (original title ''Dans la Lumiere''), Besson was spending most of his time at EuropaCorp as a writer and producer, rather than a director: he had 44 writing credits and 103 producer credits, but only 17 directing credits.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Ebert |first1=Roger |title=The woman who embodies Burma |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-lady-2012 |website=RogerEbert.com |access-date=27 April 2025 |date=18 April 2012}}</ref>

The film was a departure from Besson's favoured directorial genres, and from his preference to write the films he directs; the screenwriter was [[Rebecca Frayn]]. Western critics singled out Besson's direction for negative comments; [[Roger Ebert]] said: "Perhaps, given his strengths in genre films, he should have chosen not to direct this one…"<ref>{{cite web |last1=Ebert |first1=Roger |title=The woman who embodies Burma |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-lady-2012 |website=RogerEbert.com |access-date=27 April 2025 |date=18 April 2012}}</ref>

After several failures, Besson returned to creative form and to international success with ''[[Lucy (2014 film)|Lucy]]'' (2014), which became the world's most successful French feature film, earning $469 million worldwide, superseding the previous record holder ''[[The Intouchables]]'' ($426 million).<ref>{{cite web |title=Lucy (2014) |url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt2872732/?ref_=bo_se_r_1 |website=Box Office Mojo |access-date=27 April 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=The Intouchables (2011) |url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt1675434/?ref_=bo_se_r_1 |website=Box Office Mojo |access-date=27 April 2025}}</ref>

The blockbuster ''[[Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets]]'' (2017) had a budget of around $180 million, making it both the most expensive European and the most expensive [[independent film]] ever made.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Lee |first1=Chris |title=Not a Marvel Movie: 'Valerian' Director on His Epic and Expensive Sci-Fi Adapted From a Graphic Novel |url=https://www.newsweek.com/2017/07/14/valerian-movie-weekend-review-spic-expensive-sci-fi-632026.html |website=Newsweek |access-date=27 April 2025 |date=5 July 2017}}</ref> But by the summer of 2017, Chinese critics were snubbing it and the investment seemed impossible to make profitable.

Besson's failure was repeated with his next film, ''[[Anna (2019 feature film)|Anna]]'' (2019), placing his company in near bankruptcy and forcing him to sell it to a creditor and then close the free, no-degree-required [https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89cole_de_la_Cit%C3%A9 school for screenwriters and directors] that he had founded in 2012.