Cannes Film Festival director Thierry Frémaux was asked during Monday’s kickoff press conference about Hollywood’s lack of commitment at this year’s fest with big world premieres, and whether Universal’s Fast & Furious 25th anniversary programming was a make-good.
“I hope the studio films come back,” said Frémaux.
Since Covid, a handful of summer studio tentpoles fizzled in their Cannes launch with lackluster reviews and ultimately poor box office results. Take your pick on what was unveiled too soon: Disney/Lucasfilm’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Pixar’s Elemental (both in 2023), or Warner Bros’ Furiosa in 2024.
In the same breath, there were certainly successes. Top Gun: Maverick, which was Tom Cruise’s highest-grossing film of his career as well as Paramount’s ($1.5B), in 2022; last year’s Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning ($598.7M), and Warner Bros’ Elvis ($288.6M) in 2022 which shot Austin Butler out of a cannon as a leading man and the pick which ended up with eight Oscar nominations.
Frémaux emphasized today that “each studio, producer, each author has their own strategy” when it comes to releasing a movie. Read, there were talks originally two years ago for One Battle After Another to premiere at Cannes when the Paul Thomas Anderson-directed movie originally had an August 2025 release. When it was pushed to late September, Warner Bros skipped its festival launch plan for the pic that ultimately won six Oscars including Best Picture.
In regards to those summer tentpoles not premiering this year, Frémaux said, “Well, our rule is to not talk about films that are not in Cannes. We only talk about films in the selection.”
Word was that Universal’s Steven Spielberg UFO feature Disclosure Day, which has a June 12 release date, wouldn’t be ready in time. There was no chance that Disney was going to take Lucasfilm’s Memorial Day opener Star Wars: Mandalorian and Grogu after being burned with Dial of Destiny and Solo: A Star Wars Story in 2018. When you’re big, you gotta have the goods to play the Grand Théâtre Lumière.
There are other Hollywood insiders who call B.S. on the major studios’ excuses for skipping this year: There was product that was indeed ready.
Frémaux said Universal proposed the Fast & Furious 25th anniversary event for a midnight screening with the cast, with the fest director saying “we thought it was a wonderful idea.” Coincidentally, Wednesday night’s event comes in the wake of franchise star Vin Diesel announcing at the NBCUniversal upfronts in New York that four TV series are in the works based on the action franchise.
“Fast & Furious is a phenomenon in contemporary history of cinema,” Frémaux added. Paramount is also holding a 40th anniversary screening of Top Gun at this year’s fest.
The fest director emphasized patience with Hollywood as it continues to reconfigure post-Covid, post-strikes and in the throes of mergers.
While Hollywood is sitting out this year, Frémaux pointed out that U.S. cinema is being represented with James Gray’s Paper Tiger, Ira Sachs’ The Man I Love and Steven Soderbergh’s docu John Lennon: The Last Interview to name a few.
So the yanks have no reason to gripe even if there’s no Hollywood on the Croisette this year.
If you wanna hear complaints on being left out, talk to Italy: The country doesn’t have any titles in this year’s Cannes selection as one of the country’s journalists observed toward the end of today’s press conference.
