In 2001, Thierry Frémaux arrived in Cannes with a mandate: Build a bridge to Hollywood.
The newly installed festival director made a pilgrimage to Los Angeles to sell the major studios on the virtues of having their movies premiere on the Riviera. And he found two important believers in Tom Rothman and Jim Gianopulos, who were running 20th Century Fox at the time, and were trying to find the right platform to launch Baz Luhrmann’s “Moulin Rouge!,” a jukebox musical starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor as tragic lovers. They decided that Cannes, which helped shape France’s reputation as a destination for global cinema, was the perfect fit for a film that was a love letter to Paris. The opening night bash was one of the most storied in Cannes’ history — champagne flowed and more than 1,000 guests partied as cancan dancers performed and DJ Fatboy Slim worked the turntables.
“It was such a celebration,” Frémaux recounted at Variety’s opening night party at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival. “I had a feeling that nothing could stop us from that moment.”
And over the ensuing 25 years, Hollywood frequently did decamp for the Croisette, with directors like Clint Eastwood (“Mystic River”), Martin Scorsese (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), George Miller (“Mad Max: Fury Road”), and Steven Spielberg (“The BFG”) debuting their work in the festival’s massive Lumiere Theatre. Blockbusters from 2022’s “Top Gun: Maverick,” which saw Tom Cruise gazing up from the steps of the Palais as military jets streaked across the sky, to “Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning” in 2025, have also invested in splashy Cannes premieres. But this year it’s a different story. There had been hopes that Spielberg would bring “Disclosure Day” or Christopher Nolan would premiere “The Odyssey” at Cannes, but instead the major studios have shunned the festival, viewing it as too risky and too expensive.
“I hope the studio films come back,” Frémaux said during the festival’s opening press conference on Monday. But will they? Studio executives, agents and publicity gurus think that future editions of Cannes will offer more Hollywood star power, but they caution that at a time of belt-tightening and budget cuts, making the trip to the festival may not be worth the payoff.
In theory, attending Cannes should be a no-brainer for major U.S. studios. Talent loves it because of the glamour and global exposure. Marketing execs love it because it’s an easy lift (except for the cost, which we’ll get to) with built-in fanfare. This year, however, multiple high level sources said the conglomerates are particularly thin-skinned about the scathing Cannes critics.
The festival, excessively referred to as a “temple of cinema,” expects a lot from the titles that play in and out of competition. Critics, especially the international lot, can be savage on movies that don’t meet their high standard. As the global box office continues to climb out of its post-pandemic-and-labor-strikes slump, the majors “just don’t need the headache” of bad reviews, per one film exec who spoke with Variety. Mixed notices out of Cannes hobbled “Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny” and “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” both of which never recovered from their lackluster initial reception and bombed at the box office when they opened weeks later.
On the topic of coin — Cannes is not cheap, and that’s not only due to depleting supplies of jet fuel and the closed Strait of Hormuz. Travel, lodging, stylists, glam, support staff and distribution can run over $1 million for a major studio film, while American independents can spend anywhere from $50,000 to $200,000 to bring a movie to the festival. For the major ensemble pictures, like Wes Anderson’s frequent collaborators or splashy action films by the likes of Cruise the costs get to be truly eye-popping. That’s a big hit, according to a C-suite marketer who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
“We’re pumping every dollar into opening weekend,” they said. “We need the resources elsewhere.”
There’s some hope that Netflix might finally return to Cannes for the first time since 2017 when the streamer debuted Bong Joon-ho’s “Okja” and Noah Baumbach’s “The Meyerowitz Stories” in lavish fashion. But the company hasn’t debuted any films at Cannes since the festival changed its rules requiring that competition films play in local theaters before streaming in an effort to quell an outcry by French exhibitors. Netflix, however, has softened its stance on multiplexes; next year, it will debut Greta Gerwig’s “Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew” exclusively in theaters for a minimum of 45 days. If more of its movies follow that mold, what’s keeping Netflix from returning to Cannes in a big way?
Among the American indies, only Neon has been out in force this year, with the company bringing a staggering nine films to Cannes, including James Gray’s “Paper Tiger” and Cristian Mungiu’s “Fjord,” Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “All of a Sudden.” That’s partly because the festival has become entwined in the company’s DNA, with Neon winning six Palme d’Ors in a row, a fact that the studio often highlights in its promotional materials. But not everyone is thrilled by Neon’s big presence.
“It’s become the Neon film festival,” one awards strategist griped, while another publicist didn’t mince words, calling it, “pretty annoying.”
