‘Cooler’: Dave Bautista Bouncer Actioner At The Cannes Market From ‘Hotel Artemis’ Director Drew Pearce

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

EXCLUSIVE: Paramount’s Republic Pictures label has acquired North American rights to dystopian drama-thriller The End We Start From, starring BAFTA and Emmy winner Jodie Comer (Killing Eve).

EXCLUSIVE: Quiver Distribution has boarded recently wrapped holiday film Christmas Actually, starring Malin Akerman (Billions), Ryan Hansen (Party Down) and Amy Smart (Stargirl).

Academy Award winner Ben Kingsley (Wonder Man) and Sofia Boutella (Rebel Moon) are set to star opposite Dave Bautista in The Killer’s Game, the action comedy that JJ Perry is helming for Lionsgate, which heads into production this summer. Their roles are being kept under wraps.

Sony Pictures Classics has picked up rights to the animated feature They Shot the Piano Player for the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Scandinavia, India, the Middle East, Turkey, Southeast Asia (excluding Taiwan and South Korea) and airlines within the aforementioned territories. The film from Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal, two of the directors behind the Oscar-nominated animated feature Chico and Rita, is set up for a fall awards push from SPC.

not feel at ease overlooking the French Riviera? Though the films are the main event, luxurious fashion is the .Year after year, celebrities serve iconic looks that live in my head rent-free all year round. In 2022, Viola Davis shone like the sun in a bright yellow Alexander McQueen gown and eye-catching Boucheron jewels.

EXCLUSIVE: Here’s your first look at Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction) and Vincent Cassel (La Haine) in action-thriller Damaged, which wrapped this spring in Scotland.

EXCLUSIVE: Dark star Louis Hofmann, one of Germany’s most in-demand young actors, is joining Bella Ramsey (The Last Of Us), Dominic West (The Crown), Ruth Negga (Loving), Fiona Shaw (Harry Potter) in period drama Monstrous Beauty, which HanWay is selling at the Cannes market ahead of a planned September shoot.

Cannes Film Festival isn’t just a hub of red carpet premieres, champagne-drenched parties, and stars, stars, stars. It’s also a vibrant locus of dealmaking, with studio executives, agents and filmmakers descending on the Riviera to secure financing for their upcoming projects or to find a distributor for their latest movies. The 2023 edition is playing host to several compelling packages and potential awards contenders that could spark heated bidding wars. Here are 11 films that could leave buyers reaching for the espresso instead of the rosé as they engage in all-night battles to land the next big thing. Cast: Sean Penn, Tye Sheridan, Katherine Waterston, Michael Pitt, Mike TysonDirector: Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire Agency: CAA, WMEWhy Buyers Care: Penn and Sheridan have crackling chemistry as disgruntled mentor and doe-eyed mentee in the edge-of-your-seat thriller, which takes audiences into the often harrowing, always intense reality for paramedics in New York City. A gentle warning, though, that “Black Flies” isn’t for the squeamish. Expect plenty of blood, disturbing and graphic injuries, extreme violence…and a lot of yelling.

EXCLUSIVE: Benedict Cumberbatch has signed to star in Dylan Southern’s adaptation of Max Porter’s acclaimed novel Grief is the Thing With Feathers about a father and his two young sons dealing with the sudden death of their wife and mother.

Malina Saval Associate Editor, Features Boy George, lead singer of Culture Club, was synonymous with 1980s pop culture. Following a string of ubiquitous international radio hits such as “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me” and “Karma Chameleon,” the Grammy-winning singer embarked on a solo career, with his recording of “The Crying Game” punctuating Neil Jordan’s Academy Awarding-winning film of the same name. A steady fixture on reality shows as host of “The Voice Australia” and “The Voice U.K.,” Boy George is hitting the big screen, playing himself in Arclight Films’ comedy adventure “Arthur’s Whiskey,” starring Oscar-winner Diane Keaton, David Harewood (“Homeland,” “Blood Diamond”) and legendary Scottish recording artist Lulu. Arclight Films is handling worldwide rights to “Arthur’s Whiskey,” directed and co-written by Stephen Cookson. Arclight Films is selling the pic at the Cannes market. 

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.

Lionsgate announced on Monday that it has acquired the worldwide distribution rights to “The Killer’s Game,” an action comedy starring Dave Bautista and directed by JJ Perry. Based on Jay Bonansinga’s novel of the same name, “The Killer’s Game” will see Bautista play Joe Flood, an assassin recently diagnosed with a terminal and painful illness who, determined to not suffer a slow, painful death, orders a hit on himself…only to find out that he was misdiagnosed and is healthy. Mad Chance’s Andrew Lazar and Endurance Media’s Steve Richards will produce, with Endurance Media financing.

Lionsgate has taken worldwide rights to The Killer’s Game, an action comedy package that has Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3) set to star and JJ Perry (Day Shift) aboard to direct. The studio will launch sales at the Cannes Film Festival, which kicks off tomorrow.

EXCLUSIVE: Django Unchained and Captain Marvel star Samuel L. Jackson has been set to star in death-row drama Last Meals, joining the previously announced Boyd Holbrook (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Narcos).

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

EXCLUSIVE: Mel Gibson is returning to the director’s chair for the first time since 2016 Oscar winner Hacksaw Ridge with movie Flight Risk, which will star Oscar nominee Mark Wahlberg.

Daisy Ridley will eventually return to the “Star Wars” universe as Rey for Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy‘s “Star Wars: New Jedi Order” films, but until then, the actress needs to fill her calendar with other roles. And Ridley has some good ones on the way, including “Magpie,” which she recently finished shooting.

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.

EXCLUSIVE: As all of the Cannes packages start to trickle through ahead of the big event on the Croisette next week, an early frontrunner in the hot package game is Michael Fassbender, Domhnall Gleeson and Ruth Negga starrer Night Boat to Tangier. Oscar-winning director James Marsh is directing the project, based on the novel of the same name from Kevin Barry’s New York Times Top 10 Book of the Year.