Cannes Gets In The FAST Lane As Research Shows Movies Pack A Big Punch On Free Streaming

Brad Pitt is one of the biggest A-list stars in Hollywood.

Gilles Lellouche arrived at the Cannes press conference for his Competition title Beating Hearts (L’amour Ouf) on Friday with one of the biggest cast delegations of the festival as its 77th edition entered its final strait.

“Talk about talent, he writes, he draws, he screenwrites, and he directs, and he is tops at all those things.” That’s comic book Marvel icon Stan Lee talking about another legend in the comic book and film world, Frank Miller, who is lauded in the upcoming doc “Frank Miller: American Genius.” Known for a celebrated run at Marvel and DC Comics, the former most notably with “Daredevil,” and “Wolverine,” the latter more known for his “The Dark Knight Returns” series and “Batman: Year One,” Frank Miller is definitely comic book royalty.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Dissident Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof will be attending the Cannes world premiere of his latest work, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” having traveled to Europe clandestinely after receiving an eight-year prison sentence from the country’s authorities for making the film. Rasoulof decided to leave Iran illegally and arrived in Europe a few days ago, shortly after being sentenced to eight years in prison and flogging by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Court.

Diane Kruger is opening up about how she landed her role in David Cronenberg‘s arthouse horror film The Shrouds.

Kate Middleton has been taking time away from the public eye as she recovers from her recent abdominal surgery and subsequent cancer diagnosis, which she has been receiving preventative chemotherapy for. And now, a royal aide has shared that she won't be returning to work until she has had the 'green light' from her medical team, something which the palace has echoed.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Paolo Sorrentino is back in Cannes for the seventh time with “Parthenope,” a love letter to his native Naples but also, as he puts it, a film about his “missed youth” that comes as a natural follow-up to his autobiographical “The Hand of God.” Perhaps more significantly, “Parthenope” – an epic spanning several decades – is Sorrentino’s first female-centric film. Why? “In thinking of a modern hero, it came naturally to me that it would be a heroine, not a man,” he tells Variety. Let’s start with the film’s titular protagonist, Parthenope. Of course, Neapolitans in Italy are also known as “Parthenopeans.” My impression is that, after returning from Rome to Naples to make “The Hand of God,’ your native city drew you further back into its fold. It’s a bit more complex, actually, not necessarily just linked to Naples.

Mo Harawe makes history this Cannes with debut feature The Village Next To Paradise which is world premiering in Un Certain Regard as the first Somalian title to make it into Official Selection across the festival’s 77 editions.

Marta Balaga Spanish director Jonás Trueba wants you to celebrate the endings, not just the beginnings. That includes the demise of a serious relationship, because Ale and Alex (Itsaso Arana and Vito Sanz) have been together for 15 years. Now, they want only two things: to go their separate ways and to have a proper fiesta.

Tom Rothman, the Sony Motion Pictures Group chairman and CEO, wined and dined a select few at a splendidly swish soirée Friday at Mamo Michelangelo in Antibes, hosted by Charles Finch as part of his annual Filmmakers Dinner honoring 100 years of Columbia Pictures, and there was something he said about why movies matter that has stuck with me.

Ed Meza @edmezavar Writer, director and actress Toni Kalem (“The Sopranos“) is adapting Lore Segal’s internationally acclaimed 1964 semi-autobiographical novel “Other People’s Houses,” about a Jewish child refugee who finds asylum in Britain via the Kindertransport rescue effort. The story follows a 10-year-old Jewish girl from Vienna who is sent to England as part of the 1938 children’s transport that followed Nazi Germany’s annexation of Austria. She spends the next several years living in wildly disparate households, from wealthy families to modest working-class folks, an experience that presents her with stark impressions of England’s class system.

Billie Eilish dropped her groundbreaking, Grammy-winning debut album, “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” — there was a seismic shift in pop.At just 17, she emerged as a goth-pop princess whose spooky, synthy sound was eerily prescient of the doom to come when the pandemic shut the world.And the Billie effect was felt with everyone from Olivia Rodrigo to SZA to, yes, even Taylor Swift. While Eilish broke out of the “Bad Guy” groove of her biggest hit on her second album, 2021’s “Happier Than Ever,” there was still no stopping her power.And even when she made the most anti-blockbuster ballad for last summer’s “Barbie” smash, “What Was I Made For?” went on to win both the Song of the Year Grammy and the Best Original Song Oscar — even though the single didn’t even crack the Top 10.Now 22, Eilish is hot off of accomplishing that rare Grammy-Oscar double as she releases her third LP, “Hit Me Hard and Soft” — and she continues to go against the mainstream.In fact, she chose not to release any singles leading up to the album, wanting the collection to be consumed as a “family of songs.”Forget the fact that listening to an album from start to finish in the streaming era is a pretty radical concept.And when the LP gets off to the sleepiest of starts with the dreamy “Skinny” — where Eilish displays her new thing for strings, courtesy of the Attacca Quartet — you might think you accidentally shuffled it to the end.Just like Prince rebeled against the “Purple Rain” mania with “Around the World in a Day” and Radiohead tried to shake off the “OK Computer” masses with “Kid A,” Eilish has refused to play to the basic crowd to meet any sort of commercial expectation.And yet, it still works for her.

EXCLUSIVE: The Africa Channel (TAC) has unveiled an AVOD option for its streaming service, a suite of FAST channels and struck deals with several content suppliers.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Sola Media has closed sales for multiple territories for “The Sloth Lane,” which will world premiere at the Annecy Intl. Animation Film Festival.

Studiocanal has acquired UK and Ireland rights for Ali Abbasi’s Cannes Palme d’Or contender The Apprentice.

Christopher Vourlias Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa arrives at the Cannes Film Festival this week with his latest documentary, “The Invasion,” worried that the world’s attention has largely drifted from the Ukraine conflict in the two-plus years since Russia’s brutal and unprovoked invasion. The film premieres with a special screening May 16. Yet from the movie’s powerful opening sequence, which follows a funeral procession for four soldiers killed in battle, Loznitsa reminds us that the war continues to extract a devastating cost from its victims.

EXCLUSIVE: Since Warner Bros acquired the rights to make more Middle-earth films based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s works and the canon established by New Line’s original trilogy, Peter Jackson and his Lord of the Rings cohorts Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens hovered over the proceedings for a long time, as they mulled how to return, and much to involve themselves into another deep dive into Tolkien mythology.

What B list divorcing couple are nowhere near on agreeing to the terms of their divorce?

Alex Ritman Alyla Browne may only be 14 years old, but in the short time she’s been acting she’s somehow managed to assemble one of the most ridiculously star-studded on-screen family trees. In Hulu’s “Nine Perfect Strangers,” she played Nicole Kidman’s daughter. In Amazon Studio’s “The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart,” she was Sigourney Weaver’s granddaughter.

Christopher Vourlias In the past decade, Swedish-Polish filmmaker Magnus von Horn has become something of a fixture on the French Riviera, with his latest film, “The Girl With the Needle,” the director’s third feature to debut at the Cannes Film Festival and his first to compete for the Palme d’Or. But the dark historical drama, which is set in post-WWI Copenhagen, marks a departure for the 40-year-old.