New Cannes Market Boss Guillaume Esmiol Talks Innovations & Signs That 2023 Will Be A Record-Breaking Year For Attendance

Prime Video is not about to let rival Netflix forget about its previously benevolent attitude toward password sharing.

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.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic As much as any filmmaker alive, Wes Anderson has a canon of movies that look and feel all of a piece. The diorama design, which extends from his life-size-dollhouse sets to his graphic lettering; the acting so stylized it’s like postmodern jokey-music-video kabuki; the fable-within-a-fable structure that can seem the cinematic equivalent of nested Russian dolls; the heavy frosting of ironic whimsicality. Most of his movies share these elements, yet the truth is that not all Wes Anderson film are alike. A few, like “The Royal Tenenbaums” and “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” spin finely wrought tales beneath the filigree. One, “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” is an exhilarating caper — as well as (to me) his finest work, ironically because it isn’t pretending to be about anything.

Godard speaks! Again. Quite rightly there’s a lot of hoopla about the world premiere of a 20-minute trailer the late cinema legend Jean-Luc Godard made for a feature film that will never exist: Phoney Wars. 

Sunday night at the 76th Cannes Film Festival was all about the world premiere of the Jude Law and Alicia Vikander Henry VIII period pic Firebrand, which received a royal response from the crowd in the Grand Theatre Lumiere with an eight and a half minute standing ovation.

Podcast presenter Vogue Williams has updated her followers on the “fun things going on at home” while her husband Spencer Matthews is in Spain celebrating Made in Chelsea’s Jamie Laing and Sophie Habboo’s wedding. Vogue was invited to attend the wedding in Spain, however, she was unable to make it due to being on a live podcast tour with her co-star Joanne McNally.The duo co-host the hit podcast My Therapist Ghosted Me. Vogue posted a sweet snap with her eldest Son Theo hiding behind a plant as she captioned over the top: “Lots of fun things going on at home”.

EXCLUSIVE: Paris-based genre specialist Reel Suspects has acquired world sales for Victor Ginzburg’s Russia-set, sci-fi horror film Empire V ahead of its world premiere in Montreal’s Fantasia Fest in July.

Beyoncé and Jay-Z have acquired the crown jewel of California real estate.

EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures has snapped up U.S., Canada and key international for Studiocanal and Heyday Films’ threequel Paddington in Peru.

EXCLUSIVE: Filmax has acquired international rights to Spanish-Argentinian animated feature Robotia and will present the pic to buyers at the Cannes market.

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: FilmSharks has acquired world rights to the Spanish horror pic The Boogeyman: The Origin of the Myth (El Hombre Del Saco) and locked a series of key international deals out of Cannes.

Taipei-based Screenworks Asia is launching international sales on award-winning director Hsin-Ying Sung’s female-centric psychological thriller Lost In Perfection ahead of the Cannes market. 

Taipei-based sales agency Distribution Workshop has picked up international sales rights to $50M action adventure A Legend, starring Jackie Chan and directed by Stanley Tong. 

Sweden’s Loreen won the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 on Saturday with her song “Tattoo.”The contest was hosted in Liverpool, England, with “Ted Lasso” star Hannah Waddingham, British TV host Graham Norton, Ukrainian singer Julia Sanina of The Hardkiss, and singer Alesha Dixon, formerly of Mis-Teeq, hosting the event.More to come…

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Box office headlines have lately been dominated by Hollywood movies like Universal’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which has become the first movie of the year to hit $1 billion, and Disney’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3.” But a closer look at the global box office recovery indicates that Tinseltown does not have the field to itself. In fact, international films and markets — not the United States — are driving the current global box office recovery. In some territories, local-language titles are even dominant over Hollywood releases. And the overall scale of overseas ticket sales now dwarfs that of North America by more than two to one.

EXCLUSIVE: Cinephil has come aboard to represent worldwide sales rights to Polish director Maciek Hamela’s In The Rearview, which will make its debut in the Cannes Film Festival next week as part of the ACID (Association for the Diffusion of Independent Cinema) program. 

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.

After three long years of being cut off from the rest of the world due to pandemic travel restrictions, China’s film industry will be out in force at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. 

Neon is returning “Oldboy ” to theaters just in time for its 20th anniversary. Park Chan-wook’s acclaimed and influential psychological thriller will return to U.S.