50 Fun Facts About The Fifth Element

Luc Besson co-wrote The Fifth Element with which screenwriter, who also wrote The Karate Kid?

Kamen later co-wrote the Taken and Transporter films with Besson.

How old was Luc Besson when he began writing the story that became The Fifth Element?

He was 38 when it reached cinemas. He first imagined it as a novel to relieve teenage boredom.

Which actor plays cab driver Korben Dallas?

Besson had also approached Mel Gibson, who turned it down. Willis had just come off flops Hudson Hawk and Billy Bathgate.

Which A-list actress was considered for Leeloo before Milla Jovovich was cast?

Jovovich beat 200 to 300 applicants Besson met in person, including Elizabeth Berkley and Diane Kruger.

What was Korben Dallas's job before he became a taxi driver?

In Besson's original draft the hero, then called Zaltman Bleros, worked in a rocket-ship factory.

What was Korben Dallas's name in Besson's original story?

He was a 'nobody' who won a trip to a Club Med on Fhloston Paradise, where he met a 2,000-year-old 'sand-girl' called Leeloo.

How often does the great evil appear, according to the film's prologue?

The Mondoshawans collect the weapon from an Egyptian temple in 1914 and promise to bring it back in time.

What are the aliens who guard the weapon called?

The Mangalores are the mercenaries who shoot down their ship on Zorg's orders.

How is Leeloo recreated by scientists in the 23rd century?

It is all that survives the Mangalore ambush of the Mondoshawan ship. She wakes up remembering her previous life and escapes.

How does Leeloo first meet Korben?

She jumps off a ledge to escape the lab and lands in the traffic below.

What are the first names of the industrialist villain, surname Zorg?

Besson called Oldman one of the top five actors in the world. Oldman later admitted he did it as a favour because Besson had helped finance Nil by Mouth.

Which planet hosts the flying luxury hotel where the Diva performs?

Korben 'wins' the trip in a rigged radio contest, with Ruby Rhod along as host.

Where are the four elemental stones hidden?

Korben extracts them after she is killed in the Mangalore attack. Zorg flees with an empty case.

How does Zorg die?

He had gone back for the empty case and deactivated his own bomb, only to be caught by someone else's.

What finally makes Leeloo willing to unleash the weapon at the end?

She had given up after learning humanity's history of war. Besson wanted audiences to agree with her question about what life is worth saving for.

How many words are in the 'Divine Language' Besson invented for Leeloo?

He and Jovovich practised by writing letters and holding conversations in it. They married after the film and divorced in 1999.

Which musician was originally cast as Ruby Rhod but had to drop out because of a world tour?

Jamie Foxx was also considered; Besson liked him but felt Chris Tucker's smaller frame suited the character.

What was Ruby Rhod's first name in the original script?

One theory says the new name splices rubidium and rhodium from the periodic table; another that it pairs a feminine first name with a phallic surname.

Which fashion designer created the film's costumes?

He designed all 900 extras' costumes for the Fhloston scenes and checked each one every morning. One jacket cost $5,000.

Which two French comic artists were hired for the film's production design?

Their comics inspired the look of the futuristic New York. Moebius (Jean Giraud) later sued, unsuccessfully, over similarities to The Incal.

A flying-taxi character in which Mézières comic persuaded Besson to make Korben a cab driver?

S'Traks drives his cab through the congested skies of the planet Rubanis. Korben had previously been a rocket-factory worker in the script.

Roughly how many drawings did the design team produce in a year of pre-production?

Besson had a 400-page script by 1991 and shopped the designs around studios who baulked at the near-$100 million budget.

Which Besson film, made while The Fifth Element was stalled, helped get it financed by Columbia?

Production had shut down without warning in December 1992. Besson cut the budget to $90 million and Columbia, his partner on Léon, said yes.

Where was The Fifth Element mainly filmed, after Besson failed to find facilities in France?

It used seven soundstages including the 007 Stage. The desert scenes were shot in Mauritania.

In which African country were the 'Egyptian' desert scenes shot?

The first shot of the whole production was a desert background there on 5 January 1996.

What is unusual about the scenes featuring hero Korben and villain Zorg?

Willis wrapped on 16 May and Oldman started the following week.

Why did Besson insist most action scenes happen in broad daylight?

He wanted a 'cheerfully crazy' look rather than a gloomy, realistic one.

At what scale were the New York skyscraper models built for the effects shots?

Eighty workers spent five months on them; some of the 25 skyscrapers stood 20 feet tall, complete with furniture behind the windows.

Who composed the film's score?

Besson's regular composer, he mixed a Stalinist fanfare, reggae and hula music into the score. Music plays for about 90 per cent of the film.

The Diva Dance opera scene uses the mad-scene aria 'Il dolce suono' from which opera?

Donizetti's aria is one of the few pieces of diegetic music in the film. The scene was filmed at the Royal Opera House.

Which soprano actually sang the Diva's aria?

On screen the Diva was played by Maïwenn Le Besco, Besson's wife at the time; he left her for Jovovich during filming.

Who plays Diva Plavalaguna on screen?

Her name likely comes from the Plava Laguna resort in Croatia where Besson used to holiday.

The music in the taxi chase, 'Alech Taadi', is by which Algerian singer?

It never made the film soundtrack but is on his album N'ssi N'ssi.

The Fifth Element premiered as the opening film of which festival in May 1997?

Guests got a Fifth Element Swatch as their ticket, and Gaumont spent up to $3 million on the party, a record then.

Roughly how much did The Fifth Element gross worldwide on its $90M budget?

About three-quarters came from outside the US. It was the ninth-biggest film of 1997 worldwide.

Which 2011 film beat The Fifth Element's record as the highest-grossing French film internationally?

It had held the record for 14 years, and was the costliest European film ever made at the time of release.

Which comic did Alejandro Jodorowsky and Jean Giraud claim the film plagiarised in their lawsuit?

The case was thrown out in 2004: only 'tiny fragments' were used, and Giraud had been hired to work on the film anyway.

What was the tentative title of the rumoured sequel that Besson says he never planned?

He said in 2011 that he had no desire to make one. A Terry Bisson novelisation did appear in 1997.

The Fifth Element won three Césars: Director plus which two categories?

It also won the BAFTA for Best Special Visual Effects and got Razzie nominations for Jovovich and Tucker in the same year.

Which cast member said in 2014 of the film, 'Oh no. I can't bear it'?

He explained he had been 'singing for my supper' because Besson had part-financed his directorial debut Nil by Mouth.

Besides the actor finally cast, which star did Besson approach to play Korben Dallas?

He eventually turned it down, and the film later stalled completely in December 1992 before Columbia revived it.

Which actor plays Vito Cornelius, the priest who knows the secret of the fifth element?

Cornelius stows away aboard the luxury liner and ends up fleeing the hotel with the heroes and the stones.

Which comedian plays the flamboyant radio host Ruby Rhod?

Time magazine called him 'the summer's most outrageous special effect', while Total Film later ranked the performance among cinema's worst.

In which year is the film's prologue at the Egyptian temple set?

The aliens collect the weapon on the eve of the First World War and promise to bring it back before the great evil returns.

The Diva's concert scene was filmed at which real London venue?

Most of the rest of the film was shot on seven soundstages, including the 007 Stage, after Besson failed to find facilities in France.

At the film's 1997 festival premiere, what did guests use as their ticket to get in?

Gaumont spent between $1 million and $3 million on the event, then a record, complete with a futuristic ballet and fireworks.

The film's only Oscar nomination, for Best Sound Effects Editing, lost to which movie?

The same film beat it again at the Golden Reel Awards, though it did win a BAFTA for Best Special Visual Effects.

Leeloo's skimpy outfit when she is first revived was inspired by what?

It came from the designer whose 900 extras' costumes for the hotel scenes he personally checked every morning.

How many costumes did the designer create for extras in the flying-hotel scenes?

A single jacket from the collection cost $5,000 to make.

Which actor plays the president of the Federated Territories?

Critic Stefan Brandt singled out the president as one of the few characters who escaped the film's gender stereotypes.