Following Thursday's tease by Luc Besson, we now have more images and a few details from "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets," the filmmaker's adaptation of the influential French comic series.

The sci-fi epic stars Dane DeHaan as Valerian and Cara Delevingne as Laureline, a pair of freelance troubleshooters who solve crimes across the galaxy after their home disappears from space-time.

Besson, a longtime fan of the "Valerian" comics by Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mézières, began envisioning the movie decades ago, reveals to Entertainment Weekly that it wasn't until James Cameron began work on "Avatar" that he was propelled into action.

"I saw 'Avatar' and threw my script for 'Valerian' in the garbage," he says. "I was inspired by James Cameron. He invited me on the set of 'Avatar.' And I asked him questions and he was very open and very sweet. He was sharing with other directors. He helped other people like me to progress."

"Valerian" also stars Clive Owen, Ethan Hawke, John Goodman, Herbie Hancock and Kris Wu, but everyone is probably most intrigued by Rihanna's role. Could she be the film's villain?

"I can’t tell you that," Besson says. "The big difference between this and the Marvel pattern is that with Marvel you know after five minutes who’s the villain. They do films that are super well made, but this pattern bothered me a little bit. What’s new here is we have two agents, and over the course of one film, it’s a police investigation, in fact. So you don’t know who’s exactly bad until the end, because it’s an investigation. That’s why I can’t talk too much. But it’s a real story. That’s what I love about it."

“Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” is set to open July 21, 2017.