EXCLUSIVE: We’re hearing that Netflix is close to acquiring Cannes Competition title Gentle Monster starring Léa Seydoux. Word is that the streamer believes the Parisian actress has a shot in the Oscar Best Actress race. The pic reps the first time that the Spectre and No Time to Die actress sings onscreen. Details are still being worked out, but we hear the deal is for North America, UK, Australia and New Zealand. MK2 Films is selling Gentle Monster here at Cannes.
The streamer is also closing in on a $4M-$5M deal for Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo directed Penélope Cruz title La Bola Negra which received an unprecedented and jaw dropping 20-minute standing ovation here at Cannes.
“If they land Gentle Monster, between that and La Bola Negra, Netflix is playing their Oscar game,” says one source.
In Gentle Monster from Austrian director Marie Kreutzer , Seydoux plays an experimental pianist who relocates with her family to the countryside. There she deals with the dawning knowledge that her beloved husband Philip (Laurence Rupp) has been accused of having a second life online as a pedophile pornographer. She also contends with his panic attacks. Kreutzer drew inspiration for the movie from an article in the German weekly newspaper, Die Zeit.
Kreutzer told Deadline at our Cannes studio, “It was about a big ring of pedo-criminals in Germany who were uncovered and then subsequently prosecuted,” the director said. “It was about the whole investigation, it was very explicit, it was very hard to read. And after that, I was at a public [swimming] pool with my daughter, and I walked around the area, and I couldn’t look at the families the same way I had looked at them before. And it just really changed my perspective because obviously I knew about sexual violence against or towards children. But what I wasn’t aware of is that, statistically speaking, I must not only know victims, which I know I do, I must also know perpetrators. And this made me feel very angry and sick, but also helpless. And I thought the only thing I can do about it is make a film about it because that’s what I do.”
