Luc Besson arrives at his office in Paris's eighth arrondissement clutching a motorcycle helmet against his belly. Casual in a cotton T-shirt, the French film mogul looks a little tired, his thick tufts of silvery hair – which he likes to gel into spikes – flattened by the ride.

He may still look like a filmmaker on night shoots, but the 50-year-old director-turned- producer, who has made Hollywood blockbusters such as Leon and The Fifth Element,is also an astute businessman. Mr Besson's grasp of what audiences want has propelled him to the kind of sustained success many in the film industry only dream of, while Europacorp, his company, has become one of the leading film production houses in Europe.

The auteur-dominated film community in France has long been reluctant to embrace Mr Besson as one of its own, accusing him of creating showy Hollywood-style action movies such as La Femme Nikita. It is ironic, then, that as the founder and chairman of Europacorp, Mr Besson may be doing more to put France back on the filmmaking map than anyone else in the industry.