The sky's the limit in Babylon A.D.'s 2013 world. All images © 20th Century Fox. Courtesy of Buf Compagnie. 

In 1999, French (now Canadian) author Maurice Dantec published an influential science-fiction book called Babylon Babies. It tells the story of Hugo Toorop, a mercenary who is hired to escort a mysterious young woman across a post apocalyptic Europe in the year 2013. During their perilous journey, Toorop discovers that the woman is carrying a secret that could change the fate of the whole human race...

Mathieu Kassovitz (Gothika) has now turned the book into a gritty sci-fi epic, Babylon A.D. (now playing from Fox). The French director worked on the script for months, trimming it down, changing characters and making it possible for the 600-page story to be told in less than two hours. Two of the main alterations were changing the name of the woman from Marie to Aurora, because the original first name was too "obvious," and modifying the title from to Babylon A.D., partly because Kassovitz was worried that American audiences would understand the original title as The Babes from Babylon...

The most complex shots were completely prevised beforehand. 

The movie was the director's first large-scale vfx project ever. Very early on, even before the script was completed, he consulted with French digital effects powerhouse Buf Compagnie. Many concepts and ideas were discussed with Founder and Manager Pierre Buffin and his team. "At that time, I think he hadn't even started to write the script," Buffin remembers. "Our discussions were based on the book itself. It was the first time that we worked with Mathieu. We found that he knew what he wanted, but at the same time, he proved to be very open to solutions and suggestions. During the following months, we managed to establish a trustful relationship and to install a fruitful and creative dialogue. The movie ended up being quite complex, not exactly in terms of technical challenges, but in terms of the variety of effects that we had to achieve. It required a great deal of highly qualified artists and a huge amount of visual research. Most of the real challenges involved creating the final battle sequence on the plaza."