Elizabeth Banks & John C. Reilly To Lead Timely AI Thriller ‘Dreamquil’; HanWay, UTA & CAA Launch Sales For Cannes

K.J. Yossman Barbara Neri’s LGBTQIA+ play about a woman who claims to be Tennessee Williams heroine Blanche DuBois is set to be adapted as a feature film, with sales launching at Cannes. Neri has partnered with Ango-American filmmaker Jaclyn Bethany’s BKE Productions for the adaptation. According to the logline, “Unlocking Desire” tells the story of “an institutionalized woman who claims to be Tennessee Williams’ iconic heroine Blanche DuBois and must unravel the tragic circumstances that brought her there.” Nancy Oswein (“Betrayed”) is on board to produce the feature, which is set to shoot on location in New Orleans and Detroit later this summer.

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

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Palestinian-British filmmaker Farah Nabulsi’s upcoming drama “The Teacher,” which is shot and set in Palestine’s Left Bank, has been acquired by top Italian indie distributor Eagle Pictures just as Vincent Maraval’s Goodfellas launches sales on the timely title in Cannes. Goodfellas, formerly known as Wild Bunch, on Thursday will be presenting to buyers the almost completed film that takes its cue from a real prisoners swap that took place in 2011 when Israel freed more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for one soldier who had been kidnapped by Palestinian militants. In “The Teacher” a Palestinian school teacher played by Saleh Bakri (“Costa Brava, Lebanon”) struggles to reconcile his commitment to political resistance with his emotional support for one of his students. There is also a subplot involving his romantic relationship with a British volunteer worker, played by Imogen Poots (“The Father”).

EXCLUSIVE: Shia LaBeouf has joined action thriller Mace, directed by Jon Amiel from a script by David Chisholm. Trevor Jackson (Grown-ish, Superfly) will co-star. Myriad Pictures is shopping the project to buyers here in Cannes this week. 

Apple Original Films on Tuesday unveiled the theatrical and streaming release dates, as well as first-look photos for its true-life dramedy The Beanie Bubble, starring Zach Galifianakis (Baskets), Elizabeth Banks (Call Jane), Sarah Snook (Succession) and Geraldine Viswanathan (Cat Person). The film marking the feature directorial debut of Emmy nominee Kristin Gore and Damian Kulash, Jr. will premiere in select theaters on July 21st before bowing globally on Apple TV+ on July 28th.

EXCLUSIVE: Cocaine Bear filmmaker Elizabeth Banks has urged industry professionals to “hold the line” and support striking writers, particularly around issues such as the use of AI as her thriller Dreamquil, which explores the dangers of artificial intelligence, launches at the Canes Market.

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: Mckenna Grace (A Friend of the Family) and Asher Angel (Shazam! films) are set to star in Alloy Entertainment’s teen romance 99 Days, based on the New York Times bestselling novel of the same name by Katie Cotugno, which we were first to tell you was in development.

EXCLUSIVE: Isabelle Huppert (Elle) and Finn Wittrock (Luckiest Girl Alive) have closed deals to star in Free Radicals, an English-language home invasion thriller based on the same-name short story originally published in The New Yorker by Nobel Prize-winning author Alice Munro.

Another day, another intriguing thriller hits the Cannes market. Deadline reports that HanWay Films has a thriller about the dangers of AI on the Croisette with Elizabeth Banks and John C.

Good afternoon Insiders, Max Goldbart here, and with Cannes just a few days away we’ve got plenty for you to digest in this week’s newsletter. You can subscribe here.

Angelique Jackson “Beneath the Grass,” a drama about the criminal justice system and marijuana incarceration rates, will hit the market at the Cannes Film Festival next week. Mía Maestro, Quincy Isaiah and Jeff Kober will lead the film, which begins production next month in New Jersey. Paradigm is representing worldwide sales for the film. “Beneath the Grass” is set in 2008, capturing both the economic recession and the “Yes We Can” summer, and follows a single Latina mother whose illegal marijuana business is jeopardized when her young son befriends the new neighbors, a young white boy and his police officer grandfather.

John Travolta (Grease) and Katherine Heigl (Firefly Lane) have boarded the rom-com That’s Amore!, written and to be directed by two-time Academy Award winner Nick Vallelonga (Green Book), with Christopher Walken (Severance) also in talks to star.

Naman Ramachandran Principal photography has commenced on Adam MacDonald’s survival thriller “Out Come the Wolves.” The feral feature, which will be shot on location in Dundas, Ontario throughout May, follows the story of a woman who takes her fiancé to a secluded cabin to meet her best male friend, before things take a dark turn during a hunting trip. The film is represented for international by Altitude Film Sales, who will be discussing the film with buyers at the upcoming Cannes Film Market. MacDonald’s credits include “Backcountry”, which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and “Pyewacket”, which also debuted at TIFF. He also directed the third and fourth seasons of “Slasher” and the upcoming season five for AMC’s Shudder. Most recently, he completed directing the first virtual reality horror movie experience for Meta entitled “Be Mine.”

EXCLUSIVE: On the eve of his acting return at the Cannes Film Festival, Johnny Depp has set a buzzy cast for Modi, his first directorial effort in 25 years.

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

Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International “My Life As a Zucchini” director Claude Barras has set up his latest stop-motion animated feature, “Savages!” Production company Gebeka International — a Hildegarde-Goodfellas company formed in 2021 — and production, financing and sales studio Anton are behind the project, which will be written by Barras and Catherine Paille (“Magnetic Beasts”). The project will be shopped to buyers in Cannes next week. “Savages!” follows the emotional journey of a girl, her father and a rescued baby orangutan. The film has a strong environmental and conservationist message, exploring the crisis of the destruction of rainforests.

Naman Ramachandran Melissa Barrera (“Scream VI”), Nicholas Hoult (“The Menu”) and Lana Condor (“Moonshot”) headline the cast of “The One,” from writer-director team Kevin Armento and Jaki Bradley. HanWay Films is handling worldwide sales, and will launch the film at the Cannes film market, with WME Independent and UTA co-repping the film for North America. “The One” follows Taylor (Barrera), who’s made a last-ditch effort to find love by becoming a contestant on a reality dating show. Now down to just herself and two other women competing to win the heart of Mason (Hoult), Taylor begins to feel the artifice of the show fade, and the game becomes terrifyingly real. Amidst the opulent beachfront setting, fairy-tale dates, and ever-flowing champagne, pursuit turns into obsession and rivalry turns into treachery as reality itself blurs.

Nicolas Cage (Renfield) and writer-director Andrew Niccol (Anon) will reteam with Vendôme Pictures, the Academy Award winning studio behind CODA, on Lords of War — a sequel to the 2005 crime thriller Lord of War, which starred Cage as Yuri Orlov, a composite character based on numerous arms dealers.

EXCLUSIVE: Ryan Phillippe (American Murderer), Emile Hirsch (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) and Mena Suvari (American Horror Story) will topline Kalahari, a new action thriller from Vertical, which has wrapped production.