A24 Closing U.S. Rights Deal on Ruben Ostlund’s ‘The Entertainment System Is Down’

Emilia is making history!

Joe Biden amped up his attacks on Donald Trump following his rival’s conviction on 34 felony charges last week, calling the former president “unhinged” and engaged in an “all-out assault” on the justice system.

EXCLUSIVE: UTA has signed comedic multi-hyphenate Cedric the Entertainer and his production company A Bird And A Bear Entertainment for representation in all areas.

TrustNordisk has sold Georg Maas and Judith Kaufmann’s Franz Kafka biopic The Glory Of Life to several key markets, including North America and France. 

EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) has dipped into the acquisitions market for European drama series The Crimson Rivers.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Rolling off the Cannes Film Festival where it won several awards, Mohammad Rasoulof‘s “The Seed of The Sacred Fig” has been acquired by a flurry of high profile distributors in major international territories. Films Boutique, which represents the critically acclaimed political drama globally, has sold it to Lionsgate for the U.K.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor OpenAI announced pacts with two more media companies — Vox Media and The Atlantic — to license their content for the ChatGPT artificial-intelligence chatbot. Under the deals, the companies also will work with OpenAI on a range of product-development initiatives.

Anamaria Vartolomei, the breakout star of Audrey Diwan’s Venice prizewinning “Happening,” is under the spotlight at this year’s Cannes Film Festival playing strong women in a pair of movies, “Being Maria” and “The Count Monte Cristo.” Both movies are supported by Chanel for which Vartolomei is an ambassador. Vartolomei says since starring in Diwan’s drama “Happening,” which was set in the 1960s and centered around the then-illegal act of abortion, she has continued being lured to demanding roles with political and social themes.

The Match Factory has finalized a raft of international deals for Coralie Fargeat’s Cannes Palme d’Or contender The Substance, following its buzzy premiere over the weekend in the presence of co-stars Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, and Dennis Quaid.

Travel plans are being altered, ministerial meetings in Westminster are being cancelled, as Rishi Sunak has now finally called the much-anticipated General Election for July 4 - and with more than 100 MPs throwing in the towel at this election, including a former Prime Minister, the next parliament will look very different.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Swedish director Ruben Östlund, who won Cannes Film Festival‘s Palme d’Or for “The Square” and “Triangle of Sadness,” was among the guests at the German Films and Medienboard Reception on May 18 in the garden of the Mondrian Hotel in Cannes. Östlund, who is in the Riviera resort to promote his latest production, “The Entertainment System Is Down,” was accompanied by Philippe Bober of Coproduction Office, one of the film’s producers, and Erik Hemmendorf of Plattform Produktion, Östlund’s Swedish producer. (They are pictured above.) German Films, which is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year, was represented at the event by managing director Simone Baumann, and Medienboard, which is a film fund for the Berlin-Brandenburg region, was represented by its CEO Kirsten Niehuus.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Berlin-based sales agency Films Boutique has closed the first international sales for Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” ahead of its world premiere on Friday in the Competition section of the Cannes Film Festival. The film has been acquired in Italy by BiM Distribuzione and Lucky Red, Benelux by September Film Distribution, Spain by Bteam Pictures, Greece by Ama Films, Hungary by Cirko Film, Norway by Selmer Media, Portugal by Leopardo Filmes, Taiwan by Hooray Films and Turkey by Bir Film.

Annika Pham Back in Cannes a year after presiding over the main Cannes jury, the two-time Palme d’or winner Ruben Öslund unveiled more details about his next mega-project, English-language “The Entertainment is Down,” which he said should be ready for Cannes 2026. The press conference, attended by the hottest talent and producers from the Nordic region and beyond, was hosted by Film i Väst, one of Europe’s largest regional film funds.

“It’s f–ing hard to make a good airplane movie,” Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund emphasized multiple times this morning in Cannes as he spoke to international press about his plans for The Entertainment System Is Down, the latest feature he has set to direct starring a buzzy cast led by Kirsten Dunst and Daniel Brühl. 

Annika Pham Billed the ‘Trollywood’ of the North for its close ties to talent, the leading Scandinavian regional film fund Film i Väst in Sweden’s Trollhättan has boarded the Noomi Rapace starrer “Mother, to be helmed by Macedonia’s Teona Stugar Mitevska. The biopic, in which Rapace will play the legendary religious figure Mother Teresa, will mark the English-language debut of esteemed auteur Mitevska, credited for the 2019 Berlin entry “God Exists, Her Name is Petrunya”.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent “Succession” star Nicholas Braun is in talks to star in Ruben Östlund’s “The Entertainment System Is Down.” Keanu Reeves, Kirsten Dunst and Daniel Brühl are already on board the buzzy satire. “The Entertainment System Is Down” is one of the sexiest packages being shopped at the Cannes Film Market, where the Coproduction Office has launched international sales.

EXCLUSIVE: The novel Next to Heaven hit the market this week. Written by Anonymous, it’s a social satire that is being shopped by WME simultaneously for both a publishing deal and a film/TV deal. The TV deal has just closed, and the publishing deal will be next.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter It’s been less than two years since the close of Nexstar’s acquisition of The CW and the network’s primetime slate could not look more different. In addition to the broadcaster’s shifted focus to sports, unscripted fare and foreign imports/co-productions, The CW will soon be getting into the original TV movie business.

EXCLUSIVE: Colombian actress Diana Hoyos (Sniper: Ultimate Kill, Oye Bonita, Nurses) has joined the cast of the action pic Diablo, which Grindstone Entertainment Group has acquired for North America. 

After two Palme d’Or wins, it feels like Ruben Östlund can make a movie about whatever the hell he wants with whatever actors he chooses. And for his new film, “The Entertainment System is Down,” it appears he’s doing just that.