Rihanna lands a big role in Luc Besson's Valerian

Rihanna has been cast in Luc Besson's upcoming sci-fi adaptation, Valerian. The director himself announced the news via Instagram, excitedly telling his followers the singer has snagged a "big part," though refusing to specify which character she's been assigned. The songstress joins the previously announced Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne, who both snagged the leading roles a while back.

The movie takes inspiration from Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mezieres' 1960s graphic novel Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets. It takes place during the 28th century, at a point when mankind discovers time travel. Two spatio-temporal (yeah, we know) agents -- DeHaan and Delevingne -- are tasked with patrolling throughout history in order to keep Earth safe, and presumably to stop any Predestination-type shenanigans.

Whatever the case, Besson's got his eye on turning Valerian into quite the immersive world-builder. He's already contracted three separate effects houses - WETA, ILM and Rodeo - to render these multiple future worlds and alternate universes. It's an ambitious project that caters to the current time-travel trend, and with Besson's fantastical eye it ought to be worth the $180 million budget. Valerian opens on July 21, 2017.

Gem Seddon

Gem Seddon is GamesRadar+'s west coast Entertainment News Reporter, working to keep all of you updated on all of the latest and greatest movies and shows on streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime. Outside of entertainment journalism, Gem can frequently be found writing about the alternative health and wellness industry, and obsessing over all things Aliens and Terminator on Twitter.