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www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/blacksmith-enfant-terrible-cannes-hottest-films-1298725/item/cannes-hot-9-not-hope-1299157
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www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/blacksmith-enfant-terrible-cannes-hottest-films-1298725/item/cannes-hot-9-not-hope-1299157
Cannes Hot List: 25 Films Set to Heat Up the (Virtual) Market
ANOTHER ROUND
DIRECTOR Thomas Vinterberg
STAR Mads Mikkelsen
STATUS Completed
SALES TrustNordisk
BUZZ Art house fave Vinterberg (The Commune) promises an intellectual romp with this drama about four friends who test a theory that they will improve their lives by maintaining a constant level of alcohol in their blood.
HERE WE ARE
DIRECTOR Nir Bergman
SALES MK2 Films
STATUS Completed
BUZZ This Israeli family drama, about a mentally challenged man in his early 20s and his single father, should be just the ticket for specialty buyers who know Bergman from his 2002 sleeper, Broken Wings.
ENFANT TERRIBLE
DIRECTOR Oskar Roehler
SALES Picture Tree International
STATUS Completed
BUZZ This biopic of legendary German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder is from Roehler (Agnes and His Brothers), the man dubbed the "new Fassbinder." Art house distributors will snatch this up.
SILK ROAD
DIRECTOR Tiller Russell
STARS Nick Robinson, Jason Clarke
STATUS Completed
SALES Sierra/Affinity (International), Endeavor (North America)
BUZZ: Based on the founder of the notorious, eponymous darkweb site, Silk Road was set to premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival before COVID-19. The Virtual Cannes Market should convince international buyers of the appeal of this real-life thriller.
SUMMER OF '85
DIRECTOR François Ozon
SALES Playtime
STATUS Postproduction
BUZZ Ozon (8 Women) is a guaranteed draw for art house audiences, and this piece of French period nostalgia — about teen romance off the coast of Normandy in the halcyon '80s — looks like ideal counterprogramming to the daily horror of the news.
ANOTHER ROUND
DIRECTOR Thomas Vinterberg
STAR Mads Mikkelsen
STATUS Completed
SALES TrustNordisk
BUZZ Art house fave Vinterberg (The Commune) promises an intellectual romp with this drama about four friends who test a theory that they will improve their lives by maintaining a constant level of alcohol in their blood.
HERE WE ARE
DIRECTOR Nir Bergman
SALES MK2 Films
STATUS Completed
BUZZ This Israeli family drama, about a mentally challenged man in his early 20s and his single father, should be just the ticket for specialty buyers who know Bergman from his 2002 sleeper, Broken Wings.
ENFANT TERRIBLE
DIRECTOR Oskar Roehler
SALES Picture Tree International
STATUS Completed
BUZZ This biopic of legendary German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder is from Roehler (Agnes and His Brothers), the man dubbed the "new Fassbinder." Art house distributors will snatch this up.
SILK ROAD
DIRECTOR Tiller Russell
STARS Nick Robinson, Jason Clarke
STATUS Completed
SALES Sierra/Affinity (International), Endeavor (North America)
BUZZ: Based on the founder of the notorious, eponymous darkweb site, Silk Road was set to premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival before COVID-19. The Virtual Cannes Market should convince international buyers of the appeal of this real-life thriller.
SUMMER OF '85
DIRECTOR François Ozon
SALES Playtime
STATUS Postproduction
BUZZ Ozon (8 Women) is a guaranteed draw for art house audiences, and this piece of French period nostalgia — about teen romance off the coast of Normandy in the halcyon '80s — looks like ideal counterprogramming to the daily horror of the news.
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THE UNITED STATES VS BILLY HOLIDAY
DIRECTOR Lee Daniels
STARS Andra Day, Trevante Rhodes, Garrett Hedlund, Natasha Lyonne
STATUS Pre-production
SALES Sierra/Affinity
BUZZ 'Marshall' star Andra Day will play Billie Holiday in this drama focusing on the concerted campaign by U.S. federal agents to target the legendary jazz singer with an undercover sting operation aimed at prohibiting her from singing the Strange Fruit, a song condemning lynching that would herald the modern Civil Rights Movement.
ARMAGEDDON TIME
DIRECTOR James Gray
STARS Robert De Niro, Oscar Isaac, Donald Sutherland, Anne Hathaway, Cate Blanchett
STATUS Preproduction
SALES Wild Bunch International (international), CAA Media Finance (domestic), Wild Bunch/CAA Media Finance (China)
BUZZ Ad Astra director Gray has lined up another all-star cast for his next production, a semi-autobiographical drama based on Gray's 1980s upbringing in the New York borough of Queens, where the director attended a private school that counts Donald Trump among its alumni.
BALESTRA
DIRECTOR Nicole Dorsey
STARS Tessa Thompson, Marwan Kenzari
STATUS Preproduction
SALES Mister Smith Entertainment (international), Endeavor Content, CAA Media Finance (domestic)
BUZZ Creed and Thor: Ragnarok star Thompson plays a competitive fencer who begins a tumultuous affair with her instructor (Aladdin actor Kenzari) in this psychological thriller that could appeal to buyers looking for a Black Swan-style cross-over title.
THE BLACKSMITH
DIRECTOR Pierre Morel
STARS Nick Jonas, Laurence Fishburne
STATUS Preproduction
SALES AGC Studios
BUZZ Action is king on the international indie market, and this package, which has Jonas starring as a go-to weapons expert for the intelligence community, could tap into the John Wick audience for high-concept thrillers.
SONGBIRD
DIRECTOR Adam Mason
STATUS Pre-Production
SALES ICM Partners/Endeavor Content
BUZZ The highest-profile coronavirus title to emerge from the lockdown, this found footage thriller, produced by Michael Bay, and Paramount production boss Adam Goodman’s Invisible Narratives aims to be the first film to shoot in L.A. later this summer. Set two years in the future it imagines a dystopia where the virus has continued to mutate and government measures of social control become more and more extreme.
FERRARI
DIRECTOR Michael Mann
STAR Hugh Jackman
STATUS Pre-Production
SALES STX (international), CAA Media Finance (U.S.)
BUZZ Michael Mann's hotly-anticipated biopic, staring Jackman as Italian racing icon Enzo Ferrari, is well-time, coming up fast behind 20th Century Fox's well-received Ford v Ferrari and looking to appeal to a similar audience. Based on Brock Yates’ book Enzo Ferrari – The Man and the Machine, the drama is set over a key summer in 1957 when Ferrari bets his future, and that of his young family, on a single treacherous race, the infamous 1957 Mille Miglia.
EMANCIPATION
DIRECTOR Antoine Fuqua
STAR Will Smith
STATUS Preproduction
SALES FilmNation Entertainment (international), CAA Media Finance (U.S.)
BUZZ Arguably the hottest title at this year's market, this runaway slave thriller from The Equalizer director Fuqua is billed as an Apocalypto-style man-against-nature actioner with a true-life element (it is based on the infamous 'scourged back' image taken of an escaped slave in 1863). The combination of Smith and Fuqua, together with the film's extreme topicality should make this a no-brainer for international buyers, if a studio or streamer doesn't snatch it up first.
ARTHUR THE KING
DIRECTOR Baltasar Kormakur
STAR Mark Wahlberg
STATUS Pre-production
SALES Sierra/Affinity
BUZZ The man-with-dog true-life adventure tale (based on the 2017 book), re-teams Wahlberg with his Contraband and 2 Guns director Baltasar Kormakur in a story of the captain of a Swedish adventure racing team (Wahlberg) who befriends a wounded stray dog during a 400-mile race through the Ecuadoran jungle. Lionsgate have picked up domestic on the title, which should reassure international buyers that the movie will get a proper U.S. release.
FALLING
DIRECTOR-STAR Viggo Mortensen
SALES HanWay Films (international), UTA (North America)
BUZZ Mortensen's directorial debut, in which he stars as a man dealing with his dementia-afflicted father, premiered at Sundance, but its most appreciative audience could come from the international art house crowd.
FANTASTIC FLITCROFTS
DIRECTOR Craig Roberts
STAR Mark Rylance
STATUS Pre-Production
SALES Cornerstone Films
BUZZ Feel-good escapism is exactly what the post-pandemic market wants, setting up this golfing-themed comedy for strong sales at the Virtual Cannes Market. Rylance will play Maurice Flitcroft, an amateur putter and unrelenting optimist who qualified for the 1976 British Open Golf Championship and went on to shoot the worst round in Open history, becoming a folk hero in the process. Roberts will direct from an adapted screenplay by Paddington 2 screenwriter Simon Farnaby.
HEAVEN: TO THE LAND OF HAPPINESS
DIRECTOR Im Sang-soo
SALES Finecut Co.
BUZZ Buyers still kicking themselves for not snatching up Parasite will be checking out this Cannes title from Korean genre favorite Im Sang-soo (The Housemaid). Like Bong Joon Ho's hit, Heaven hides a social message in the story of a dying man who steals the medicine he needs to stay alive.
JOIKA
DIRECTOR James Napier Robertson
STAR Thomasin McKenzie
SALES Embankment Films (worldwide), UTA Independent Film Group (co-rep U.S.)
STATUS Preproduction
BUZZ McKenzie, the fast-rising star of Jojo Rabbit, will topline in this biopic as American ballet dancer Joy Womack, the second American to graduate from Moscow's infamously tough Bolshoi Ballet Academy.
NO MAN OF GOD
DIRECTOR Amber Sealey
STAR Elijah Wood
STATUS Preproduction
SALES XYZ Films
BUZZ Wood plays Ted Bundy’s FBI analyst in this crime-thriller from genre specialists XYZ, which has the advantage of being an enclosed drama (the film is largely set in a single interrogation room), meaning it will be easier to make in the post-COVID-19 world.
NOT WITHOUT HOPE
DIRECTOR Rupert Wainwright
STAR Miles Teller
STATUS Preproduction
SALES Highland Film Group (international), CAA Media Finance (domestic)
BUZZ Whiplash breakout and upcoming Top Gun: Maverick star Teller is heading out to sea as the sole survivor of a real-life tragedy in this adaptation of Nick Schuyler and Jere Longman’s novel. In 2009, Schuyler and three friends (including two NFL players) departed Florida for a fishing trip in the Gulf of Mexico, only to be struck by a severe storm that saw their boat capsize. Super Bowl-winning quarterback Russell Wilson and Grammy-winning singer Ciara are exec producing through their Why Not You banner.
REPLAY
DIRECTOR Jimmy Loweree
STAR Olivia Munn
STATUS Preproduction
SALES The Exchange (International), CAA Media Finance (U.S.)
BUZZ In the post-COVID-19 world, escapist fiction is the order of the day, and this sci-fi thriller, which stars Munn as a woman willing to break every rule to change the past and save her dead husband, fits the bill perfectly.
RUN RABBIT RUN
DIRECTOR Daina Reid
STARS Elisabeth Moss
SALES XYZ Films
STATUS Preproduction
BUZZ The Invisible Man helped give art house favorite Moss box office cred, and this ghost thriller could land right in the indie distributor sweet spot between quality and genre fare. Moss plays a fertility doctor dealing with the strange behavior of her young daughter.
SPENCER
DIRECTOR Pablo Larraín
STAR Kristen Stewart
STATUS Preproduction
SALES FilmNation Entertainment (international), CAA Media Finance/Endeavor Content (U.S.)
BUZZ Stewart is set to play Princess Diana, in this new drama from Jackie director Larraín. The story focuses on Diana's decision, during her Christmas holidays with the royal family at the Sandringham estate in Norfolk, England, to leave her marriage to Prince Charles.
TO LESLIE
DIRECTOR Michael Morris
STARS Allison Janney, Andrea Riseborough, John Hawkes
STATUS Preproduction
SALES Mister Smith Entertainment (international), UTA Independent Film Group (U.S.)
BUZZ The all-star cast of Janney, Riseborough and Hawkes should guarantee this personal drama, based on the life of screenwriter Ryan Binaco's mother — a West Texas single mom (Riseborough) who won the lottery, blew through the money and still managed to rebuild her life — a look-in from high-end distributors worldwide.
WILDLANDS
DIRECTOR Kim Mordaunt
STAR Matthias Schoenaerts
STATUS Pre-Production
SALES HanWay Films
BUZZ Mordaunt, winner of the best first film honor in Berlin for his 2013 debut The Rocket, taps into his 10-year relationship as a documentary filmmaker with the bomb disposal world in Asia and Africa for this drama set against the explosive aftermath of Angola’s long running wars of independence. Schoenaerts (Rust and Bone, The Danish Girl) is set play a jaded bomb disposal specialist with a penchant for recklessness who gets a final shot at redemption when he’s sent to Angola — one of the most heavily mined lands in the world.
YOUTH
DIRECTOR Brett Marty
STAR Pierce Brosnan
STATUS Preproduction
SALES Highland Film Group (International)/CAA Media Finance (North America)
BUZZ Former Bond star Brosnan is the primary draw in this speculative sci-fi thriller about ad tech engineer Joel (Brosnan), who gets a second chance at youth when his company offers to pay for a procedure to restore the 70-year-old and his septuagenarian wife to the physical states they had in their 20s. But the procedure goes horribly wrong.
DIRECTOR Lee Daniels
STARS Andra Day, Trevante Rhodes, Garrett Hedlund, Natasha Lyonne
STATUS Pre-production
SALES Sierra/Affinity
BUZZ 'Marshall' star Andra Day will play Billie Holiday in this drama focusing on the concerted campaign by U.S. federal agents to target the legendary jazz singer with an undercover sting operation aimed at prohibiting her from singing the Strange Fruit, a song condemning lynching that would herald the modern Civil Rights Movement.
ARMAGEDDON TIME
DIRECTOR James Gray
STARS Robert De Niro, Oscar Isaac, Donald Sutherland, Anne Hathaway, Cate Blanchett
STATUS Preproduction
SALES Wild Bunch International (international), CAA Media Finance (domestic), Wild Bunch/CAA Media Finance (China)
BUZZ Ad Astra director Gray has lined up another all-star cast for his next production, a semi-autobiographical drama based on Gray's 1980s upbringing in the New York borough of Queens, where the director attended a private school that counts Donald Trump among its alumni.
BALESTRA
DIRECTOR Nicole Dorsey
STARS Tessa Thompson, Marwan Kenzari
STATUS Preproduction
SALES Mister Smith Entertainment (international), Endeavor Content, CAA Media Finance (domestic)
BUZZ Creed and Thor: Ragnarok star Thompson plays a competitive fencer who begins a tumultuous affair with her instructor (Aladdin actor Kenzari) in this psychological thriller that could appeal to buyers looking for a Black Swan-style cross-over title.
THE BLACKSMITH
DIRECTOR Pierre Morel
STARS Nick Jonas, Laurence Fishburne
STATUS Preproduction
SALES AGC Studios
BUZZ Action is king on the international indie market, and this package, which has Jonas starring as a go-to weapons expert for the intelligence community, could tap into the John Wick audience for high-concept thrillers.
SONGBIRD
DIRECTOR Adam Mason
STATUS Pre-Production
SALES ICM Partners/Endeavor Content
BUZZ The highest-profile coronavirus title to emerge from the lockdown, this found footage thriller, produced by Michael Bay, and Paramount production boss Adam Goodman’s Invisible Narratives aims to be the first film to shoot in L.A. later this summer. Set two years in the future it imagines a dystopia where the virus has continued to mutate and government measures of social control become more and more extreme.
FERRARI
DIRECTOR Michael Mann
STAR Hugh Jackman
STATUS Pre-Production
SALES STX (international), CAA Media Finance (U.S.)
BUZZ Michael Mann's hotly-anticipated biopic, staring Jackman as Italian racing icon Enzo Ferrari, is well-time, coming up fast behind 20th Century Fox's well-received Ford v Ferrari and looking to appeal to a similar audience. Based on Brock Yates’ book Enzo Ferrari – The Man and the Machine, the drama is set over a key summer in 1957 when Ferrari bets his future, and that of his young family, on a single treacherous race, the infamous 1957 Mille Miglia.
EMANCIPATION
DIRECTOR Antoine Fuqua
STAR Will Smith
STATUS Preproduction
SALES FilmNation Entertainment (international), CAA Media Finance (U.S.)
BUZZ Arguably the hottest title at this year's market, this runaway slave thriller from The Equalizer director Fuqua is billed as an Apocalypto-style man-against-nature actioner with a true-life element (it is based on the infamous 'scourged back' image taken of an escaped slave in 1863). The combination of Smith and Fuqua, together with the film's extreme topicality should make this a no-brainer for international buyers, if a studio or streamer doesn't snatch it up first.
ARTHUR THE KING
DIRECTOR Baltasar Kormakur
STAR Mark Wahlberg
STATUS Pre-production
SALES Sierra/Affinity
BUZZ The man-with-dog true-life adventure tale (based on the 2017 book), re-teams Wahlberg with his Contraband and 2 Guns director Baltasar Kormakur in a story of the captain of a Swedish adventure racing team (Wahlberg) who befriends a wounded stray dog during a 400-mile race through the Ecuadoran jungle. Lionsgate have picked up domestic on the title, which should reassure international buyers that the movie will get a proper U.S. release.
FALLING
DIRECTOR-STAR Viggo Mortensen
SALES HanWay Films (international), UTA (North America)
BUZZ Mortensen's directorial debut, in which he stars as a man dealing with his dementia-afflicted father, premiered at Sundance, but its most appreciative audience could come from the international art house crowd.
FANTASTIC FLITCROFTS
DIRECTOR Craig Roberts
STAR Mark Rylance
STATUS Pre-Production
SALES Cornerstone Films
BUZZ Feel-good escapism is exactly what the post-pandemic market wants, setting up this golfing-themed comedy for strong sales at the Virtual Cannes Market. Rylance will play Maurice Flitcroft, an amateur putter and unrelenting optimist who qualified for the 1976 British Open Golf Championship and went on to shoot the worst round in Open history, becoming a folk hero in the process. Roberts will direct from an adapted screenplay by Paddington 2 screenwriter Simon Farnaby.
HEAVEN: TO THE LAND OF HAPPINESS
DIRECTOR Im Sang-soo
SALES Finecut Co.
BUZZ Buyers still kicking themselves for not snatching up Parasite will be checking out this Cannes title from Korean genre favorite Im Sang-soo (The Housemaid). Like Bong Joon Ho's hit, Heaven hides a social message in the story of a dying man who steals the medicine he needs to stay alive.
JOIKA
DIRECTOR James Napier Robertson
STAR Thomasin McKenzie
SALES Embankment Films (worldwide), UTA Independent Film Group (co-rep U.S.)
STATUS Preproduction
BUZZ McKenzie, the fast-rising star of Jojo Rabbit, will topline in this biopic as American ballet dancer Joy Womack, the second American to graduate from Moscow's infamously tough Bolshoi Ballet Academy.
NO MAN OF GOD
DIRECTOR Amber Sealey
STAR Elijah Wood
STATUS Preproduction
SALES XYZ Films
BUZZ Wood plays Ted Bundy’s FBI analyst in this crime-thriller from genre specialists XYZ, which has the advantage of being an enclosed drama (the film is largely set in a single interrogation room), meaning it will be easier to make in the post-COVID-19 world.
NOT WITHOUT HOPE
DIRECTOR Rupert Wainwright
STAR Miles Teller
STATUS Preproduction
SALES Highland Film Group (international), CAA Media Finance (domestic)
BUZZ Whiplash breakout and upcoming Top Gun: Maverick star Teller is heading out to sea as the sole survivor of a real-life tragedy in this adaptation of Nick Schuyler and Jere Longman’s novel. In 2009, Schuyler and three friends (including two NFL players) departed Florida for a fishing trip in the Gulf of Mexico, only to be struck by a severe storm that saw their boat capsize. Super Bowl-winning quarterback Russell Wilson and Grammy-winning singer Ciara are exec producing through their Why Not You banner.
REPLAY
DIRECTOR Jimmy Loweree
STAR Olivia Munn
STATUS Preproduction
SALES The Exchange (International), CAA Media Finance (U.S.)
BUZZ In the post-COVID-19 world, escapist fiction is the order of the day, and this sci-fi thriller, which stars Munn as a woman willing to break every rule to change the past and save her dead husband, fits the bill perfectly.
RUN RABBIT RUN
DIRECTOR Daina Reid
STARS Elisabeth Moss
SALES XYZ Films
STATUS Preproduction
BUZZ The Invisible Man helped give art house favorite Moss box office cred, and this ghost thriller could land right in the indie distributor sweet spot between quality and genre fare. Moss plays a fertility doctor dealing with the strange behavior of her young daughter.
SPENCER
DIRECTOR Pablo Larraín
STAR Kristen Stewart
STATUS Preproduction
SALES FilmNation Entertainment (international), CAA Media Finance/Endeavor Content (U.S.)
BUZZ Stewart is set to play Princess Diana, in this new drama from Jackie director Larraín. The story focuses on Diana's decision, during her Christmas holidays with the royal family at the Sandringham estate in Norfolk, England, to leave her marriage to Prince Charles.
TO LESLIE
DIRECTOR Michael Morris
STARS Allison Janney, Andrea Riseborough, John Hawkes
STATUS Preproduction
SALES Mister Smith Entertainment (international), UTA Independent Film Group (U.S.)
BUZZ The all-star cast of Janney, Riseborough and Hawkes should guarantee this personal drama, based on the life of screenwriter Ryan Binaco's mother — a West Texas single mom (Riseborough) who won the lottery, blew through the money and still managed to rebuild her life — a look-in from high-end distributors worldwide.
WILDLANDS
DIRECTOR Kim Mordaunt
STAR Matthias Schoenaerts
STATUS Pre-Production
SALES HanWay Films
BUZZ Mordaunt, winner of the best first film honor in Berlin for his 2013 debut The Rocket, taps into his 10-year relationship as a documentary filmmaker with the bomb disposal world in Asia and Africa for this drama set against the explosive aftermath of Angola’s long running wars of independence. Schoenaerts (Rust and Bone, The Danish Girl) is set play a jaded bomb disposal specialist with a penchant for recklessness who gets a final shot at redemption when he’s sent to Angola — one of the most heavily mined lands in the world.
YOUTH
DIRECTOR Brett Marty
STAR Pierce Brosnan
STATUS Preproduction
SALES Highland Film Group (International)/CAA Media Finance (North America)
BUZZ Former Bond star Brosnan is the primary draw in this speculative sci-fi thriller about ad tech engineer Joel (Brosnan), who gets a second chance at youth when his company offers to pay for a procedure to restore the 70-year-old and his septuagenarian wife to the physical states they had in their 20s. But the procedure goes horribly wrong.
