Change your DeLorean and check that old flux capacitor, because Cannes 2023 looks like a trip to the future.
After the COVID pandemic caused chaos and almost caused a disaster, and after fears that a rising tide of global streamers would destroy the business models of independent film distributors around the world, buyers and sellers flocked to the Croisette this year in a wave of good(ish) marches. The theatre business is coming back, and there are a lot of big films, both blockbusters and arthouse films, for sale in the U.S.
“The box office in North America is pretty close to what it was before the pandemic.
Rob Carney, the vice president of sales at Filmation, said that the company’s domestic sales were $1.8 billion in the first quarter, which was only 25% less than 2019’s record high. The European Audiovisual Observatory said that the gross box office in the European Union (EU) and the UK went up by 70% last year. By 2021, it could reach up to $5.6 billion, which is still 28 percent less than the average before the pandemic.
Carney said, “Internationally, some theatres have recovered faster than others, but I think we’ll have a very healthy market for the projects we’re bringing to the theatre business.” This shows more optimism around.”
Filmation’s Cannes schedule is clearly geared towards making money, with films like Nicolas Cage’s Lord of War, a sequel to the 2005 hit Lord of War in which he plays an international arms dealer, and Stephen King’s Life of Chuck, a horror movie based on his book. For the Most Expert is a romantic biopic from Gloria Bell starring Tom Hiddleston and Mark Hamill. Director Sebastian Lelio plays famous astronomer Carl Sagan, and Andrew Garfield and Daisy Edgar-Jones play his colleague and fellow TV producer Ann Druyan.
Alice Lafille, vice president of sales at FilmNation, said, “There’s a huge range of what’s working.” “But I think that the projects that stand out in the market are ones that are clearly made for the theatre and are different from films that are easy to watch at home.”
So it looks like the stars are back in style. Talent like Nicolas Cage, Keanu Reeves, Diana Keaton, Florence Pugh, and Mark Wahlberg, who already have fans and a track record at the box office, as well as fast-rising next-generation names like Eiza Gonzalez, Bella Ramsey, Zar Aamir-Ibrahimi, and Daisy Edgar-Jones, has seen its stock price rise as buyers focus on filling theatres instead of supplying streamers.
This year’s Cannes may also see the return of one-time global box office winner Johnny Depp. He will not only walk the red carpet for the opening night film directed by Maiwen, Jean du Barry, in which he plays King Louis XV, but he will also be busy in the Marche, meeting with buyers to pitch his upcoming directorial effort, Modigliani, which stars Riccardo Scamarcio, Pierre Nini, and Al Pacino.
International streamers like Netflix, Amazon, Disney+, and others have changed their strategies. They now buy fewer independent films and are more willing to share rights with local distributors instead of buying up the whole world “is,” says Todd Brown, partner and head of acquisitions at genre expert XYZ Films. “There is now a clear line between what the streamers want and what independents can do. This gives independents a chance to counter-program and offer an alternative to what the streamers are doing.
XYZ is using Cannes to introduce New Vision, a new group of international genre films that are “outside the box,” like the Pakistani horror film “In Flames.”
Both the Czech science fiction story “Restore Point” and the Irish folk horror story “All You Need Is Death” are about how to stop programming.
“I’m afraid to try a traditional crime thriller, most rom-coms, or even a mainline comedy without a cast in this market, because streamers do all of these things so well. Many Casts languages, “Brown says. “But there’s still a lot of room for other things.”
