As Cannes Market Heats Up, Will Writers Strike Slow Down Deals?

Holly Willoughby has been left distressed by Phillip Schofield's latest interviews. She has been pictured enjoying the half-term break with her family in Portugal before she plans to return to This Morning on Monday. The ITV presenter and her former co-star Phillip, 61, have presented the ITV Daytime programme for the past 13 years.

Hong Sangam is soo’s In Our Day, the closing night film at Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight sidebar, has sold to Cinema Guild for North America.

EXCLUSIVE: Avatar Entertainment is in Cannes launching The House on Tifton Lake, a Mexican horror starring Vadhir Derbez (Sense8, The Seventh Day).

Senegalese and French director Ramata-Toulaye Sy is only the second Black woman to make it into Competition in Cannes. Her debut feature, Banel & Adama, which had its debut Saturday, follows in the footsteps of Mati Diop’s 2019 Atlantics.

EXCLUSIVE: UK company Architect was recently founded by sales executives Calum Gray and Max Pirkis, together with Patrick Fischer and Richard Kondal of financier Creativity Capital.

Sophia Scorziello editor The ATX TV Festival has made changes to their program amid the ongoing writers strike, including the addition of the WGA on Strike! panel of leading television writers. The conversation will address the key issues that writers are fighting for as they share why the strike matters to Hollywood and entertainment unions at large. The panel will host Zoanne Clack (WGA West), Greg Iwinski (WGA East, negotiating committee), Damon Lindelof (WGA West) and Julie Plec (WGA West) and will be moderated by Beau Willimon (WGA East). The festival has cancelled select programs, including “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” the “Andor” conversation with Tony Gilroy, “Tiny Beautiful Things” conversation with Liz Tigelaar and Cheryl Strayed and the “Dawson’s Creek” 25th Anniversary Screening & Conversation.

The yearly ATX Television Festival will adjust its schedule to accommodate conversations about the ongoing writers strike, some of which will replace previously announced panels. The Austin-based event runs from June 1 – 4.

EXCLUSIVE: Mind the Gap Productions is in Cannes launching sales on The Effects of Lying, a comedy-drama starring the likes of Ace Bhatti (Bohemian Rhapsody, Line of Duty), Laila Rouass (Spooks) and Mark Williams (Harry Potter franchise).

EXCLUSIVE: Jessica Alba (Sin City), Russell Harvard (Fargo), and Daniel Durant (CODA) are attached to star in sports feature film Flash Before the Bang, inspired by the true story of an all-deaf high school track and field team in 1980’s Oregon.

EXCLUSIVE: LA-based production, finance, and sales company Premiere Entertainment have picked up international rights to the military action thriller Warhorse One, starring actor Johnny Strong (Black Hawk Down).

Mister Smith Entertainment.   Indeed, as studio executives and sales agents hit the South of France, their eyes remain fixed on the labor strike roiling the entertainment industry. “The strike is a bit less an immediate all-consuming issue for independent film than it is for scripted television,” says AGC Studios executive Stuart Ford.

EXCLUSIVE: Normal People and Where the Crawdads Sing star Daisy Edgar-Jones is the latest star attached to Oscar winner Ron Howard’s next movie Origin Of Species, which is a hot project at the Cannes market.

This year’s Peabody Awards ceremony has been canceled “due to the ongoing uncertainty and meaningful challenges that exist industrywide,” according to a statement from the Peabody Awards organization. The June 11 awards would have been the organization’s first in-person ceremony since 2019, as well as the first time ever in its history that the Awards would take place in Los Angeles.

EXCLUSIVE: British genre specialist Tea Shop, known for 47 Meters Down and coming off breakout thriller Fall, is lining up its next survival pic in the shape of The Bayou, which Architect is launching for sales in Cannes.

EXCLUSIVE: Palisades Park Pictures (PPP) will be representing global sales for action-thriller Duchess from director Neil Marshall (Hellboy).

It wouldn’t be a Cannes Film Festival without French actress extraordinaire Isabelle Huppert on the Croisette somehow. Deadline reports that a home invasion thriller set to star Huppert is making the rounds at the Cannes market today.

Patricia Highsmith‘s novels have been the source of several incredible film adaptations over the years, including “Strangers On A Train,” “The American Friend,” and “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” among others.

As the Cannes market heats up before the Cannes Film Festival starts next Friday, another film goes up for sale on the Croisette. Variety reports that Village Roadshow Pictures joins the market now with the epic romance “Eternal Return.” And the film has three intriguing actors as its leads: “Aladdin” breakout actress Naomi Scott, the legendary Jeremy Irons, and “Game Of Thrones” alumnus Kit Harington.

EXCLUSIVE: HBO Documentary Films has pre-bought North American streaming and TV rights to Musk, Alex Gibney’s upcoming documentary about lightning rod entrepreneur and businessman Elon Musk.

Slow Horses star Jack Lowden is leading a John Maclean-helmed survival thriller that will be taken to Cannes Market by HanWay Films.