Luc Besson will never make a video game, he’s never even played one

There’s no chance that you'll be playing a Luc Besson video game anytime soon.

The director behind The Fifth Element, Le Dernier Combat and Lucy, among others, is at New York Comic Con this week promoting next year’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, a movie adaptation of a long-running French sci-fi comic book series.

Despite his love of science fiction, Besson describes himself as a technophobe of sorts.

“I don’t even have a computer,” he said. “I write by hand. I’m kind of allergic to it, but I like the results of it. I’m not technical.”

I asked Besson if he would ever consider making a video game.

“No,” he said. “I’ve never played a video game. I don’t play games at all, not even cards or chess.”

He said he also couldn’t see himself creating a movie in virtual reality — not because of the technology involved, but because as a writer and director, he thinks the creator, not the viewer, should maintain full control of the work.

“I’m a very old-fashioned artist. I’m like a painter," he said. "You do a painting and then you share with people your painting. But if you give a pencil to everyone and say, ‘OK, now make your own creation,’ it’s another process. It’s not the same. It’s about your expression of that. When I go to see the film of others I’m expecting to see them. If we interact it’s just another thing.”

He said he’s not completely against interaction, but just not in his films.

“I love that when we do sports, but not in creation.”

Check back later for our full write-up of our roundtable interview with Besson and illustrator Jean-Claude Mézières about the creation of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.