May
21
Cannes: Market Watch
At Cannes, stateside distribs have been viewing back-to-back movies in the fest and market as well as checking out advance footage on view from foreign sellers. “We’re seeing movies from 8:30 AM to 11 PM every day,” said Sony Pictures Classics co-prexy Tom Bernard, who arrived at the fest with two films already in hand, Atom Egoyan’s Adoration and Wong Kar Wai’s Ashes of Time Redux. “We also have a lot of meetings and scripts to read in the room.”
But buyers are proceeding with caution, with Fest Opener Fernando Meirelles’ tepidly received Blindness, which sold 42 territories at last year’s Cannes market, as a cautionary omen, and the awareness that even Oscar contenders that look like winners can wind up loss leaders.
In addition to Steven Soderbergh’s anticipated $61 million two-parter Che, which screens Wednesday night (Wild Bunch was seeking about $8 million for North American rights), buyers at Cannes are bidding on James Gray’s $12-million Two Lovers, which has generated great reviews and buzz for Joaquin Phoenix’s performance, and scribe Charlie Kaufman’s feature directorial debut Synecdoche, New York, which cost $20 million and failed to score a sale out of an early buyers' screening. The irony may be that 2929’s pricey $20-million What Just Happened?, which didn't sell at Sundance, may get a new lease on life if it plays well here, and sell for a fraction of its original asking price. Several specialty distribs are lying in wait. Magnolia may wind up releasing both Two Lovers and What Just Happened? if it doesn't get the offers it is seeking.
Generating some buyer interest are a collection of upcoming pics being shown in part in the market. On the pricier side is Jaco van Dormael’s imaginative $45-million Mr. Nobody, starring Rhys Ifans in a futuristic tale, which WIld Bunch is selling. Kinology screened eighteen minutes of footage of Jean-Francois Richet’s two-part $80-million French gangster biopic Public Enemy Number One, starring Vincent Cassell, which generated a boffo response at marketing screenings. Buyers also responded to The Other Man, Richard Eyre’s edgy relationship thriller, being sold by ICM.
Samuel Hadida is selling domestic rights to Terry Gilliam’s Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, which features an incomplete role by Heath Ledger, who was replaced by Johnny Depp and Colin Farrell. CAA and Endeavor are selling Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor as gay lovers in prison in I Love You Philip Morris. Guillermo Arriaga’s directorial debut The Burning Plain, starring Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger, which was heading for Cannes, wasn’t finished in time and will probably wind up in Venice, but is for sale by UTA in the market here.
Cinetic Media is selling Richard Linklater’s Me & Orson Welles, starring Zac Ephron as a teenager cast a Welles Shakespeare production and is teaming with 6 Sales to handle worldwide sales on Sally Potter’s fashion-house expose Rage, starring Jude Law, Judi Dench, Dianne Wiest, John Leguizamo and Steve Buscemi. William Morris and Intandem are selling Tommy Lee Jones as the star of an upcoming adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s Islands in the Stream.
Others being checked out by American buyers are James Ivory’s latest, City of Your Final Destination; Odyssey’s 60s mother-daughter tale An Education, from director Lone Scherfig, written by Nick Hornby and starring Rosamund Pike, Peter Saarsgard and Emma Thompson; Europa Corp’s third Transporter installment, starring star-on-the-rise Jason Statham; Jane Campion’s currently filming $15-million John Keats drama Bright Star, starring Abbie Cornish, Paul Schneider and Kerry Fox. Wild Bunch financed and is selling Darren Aronofsky’s $8-million The Wrestler, starring Mickey Rourke, who replaced Nic Cage when the film’s budget became too unwieldy.
While the funny promo trailer for Jean-Claude Van Damme pic JCVD wowed many buyers, some were underwhelmed when they saw a more dramatic final product. Van Damme will do some press here.
Fortissimo is pre-selling doc Oscar-winner Alex Gibney’s feature film debut, Magic Bus, set during the acid-dropping 60s. Submarine’s Josh Braun expects to close a U.S. deal on Tennessee, the Mariah Carey movie which screened at Tribeca and is on view in the marche.
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apparently nick cage was spotted at a party in boston the other night:
http://decentcommunity.org/2008/05/16/people-sighted-at-the-decent-community-disco-party-last-night/
Posted by: tubesteak | May 22, 2008 at 09:58 AM
Nice report!
Posted by: 1minutefilmreview | May 22, 2008 at 01:07 PM