John Goodman has played many different characters in his career. He’s been a sitcom dad, a volatile Vietnam war veteran whose favorite five words are the stuff of legend, Denzel Washington’s personal coke-kick dude, a furry blue monster, and a famous special-effects artist, just to name a few. However, one of the few types of roles he hasn’t filled before is a CGI alien in a live-action film—the kind not based on a toy, anyway. That one’s about to get checked off Goodman’s list, though, because The Wrap reports he’s “nearing a deal” to voice an alien in Luc Besson’s space epic, Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets.
The film is based on a popular French graphic novel series, with Dane DeHaan (Chronicle) and Cara Delevingne (Paper Towns) starring as the time-traveling title character and his redheaded companion Laureline, respectively. Apparently only five of the characters in Valerian will be human, so the other three will presumably be portrayed by the other human actors already attached to the project: Ethan Hawke, Clive Owen, and Rihanna. It’s scheduled to hit theaters July 21, 2017, 20 years after Besson’s most notable space epic to this point, The Fifth Element, was released. If Goodman’s character is a smoker, hopefully he doesn’t make the same mistake Bruce Willis’ did back then. The filter end goes in the mouth, people. Even in space.