Ryuhei Kitamura To Direct Roller Coaster Pic ‘Thrill Ride’, Film Bridge Launching For Cannes Market

2021 Palme d’Or winner Julia Ducournau returns to the Cannes Film Festival this year, but not in competition. Instead, Variety reports that she’ll be on the Croisette shopping her next project, entitled “Alpha,” with FilmNation and Charades handling its sales.

Creating a roller coaster worthy of a 10-film series whose titles revolve around the words “Fast” and “Furious” is no small task.

EXCLUSIVE:Here’s a buzzy one. Oscar nominee Hugh Jackman (Les Misérables) and Emmy winner Jodie Comer (Killing Eve) are attached to star in new movie The Death Of Robin Hood, we can reveal.

Princ Films boards ‘Isabel’s Garden’ For Cannes Marche Du Film 

EXCLUSIVE: Goodfellas has boarded upcoming war crime drama Occupation from Ukrainian writer-director Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi (The Tribe). The project, which will be produced by Loveless and Leviathan producer Alexander Rodnyansky alongside Nick Shumaker for Anonymous Content, is being launched to buyers in Cannes this month with Goodfellas repping international sales rights and Anonymous Content and CAA Media Finance co-repping North American rights. 

EXCLUSIVE: Paul Rudd (Ant-Man) and Nick Jonas (Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle) are set to star in musical comedy Power Ballad from Once and Sing Street director John Carney, we can reveal.

Simon Curtis’ upcoming comedy Encore, about a group of veteran actors whose passion for their profession is reignited through a retirement home production, has gathered a quartet of Academy Award, Golden Globe and Emmy winning stars for the ensemble cast.

The BFI is once again heading to the Cannes Market with its so-called Great 8 — a selection of projects from first and second-time filmmakers that it will present to international buyers. 

EXCLUSIVE: VMI Worldwide has acquired worldwide sales rights on Breed of Greed starring Gina Gershon (Showgirls). 

EXCLUSIVE: Cameras have started rolling in Sofia, Bulgaria, on the survival-thriller Savage Hunt from Dutch filmmaker Roel Reiné (Halo). 

Naman Ramachandran “Joyguru,” a fictionalized account of the life of Indian mystic artist and music icon Parvathy Baul, will launch sales at the upcoming Cannes Film Market. Parvathy Baul is a leading exponent of the syncretic Baul minstrel music tradition that is hugely popular and culturally influential across eastern India and Bangladesh. Written and directed by actor-turned-filmmaker Soumyajit Majumdar (“#Homecoming”), the film will follow folk music icon Radhika Das Baul and popular Bollywood film music director Ritwik during their unlikely collaboration for a pioneering music album of Baul songs transcreated in Hindi, where they form a unique bond, a few days before her sudden and mysterious disappearance from her ashram near Shantiniketan, India.

EXCLUSIVE: Artist International Group has signed renowned Japanese filmmaker Ryuhei Kitamura for representation.

Academy Award winner Jeff Bridges is set to return for Tron: Ares, his third film in the long-running sci-fi franchise from Disney, sources have confirmed to Deadline.

Adam B. Vary Senior Entertainment Writer Jeff Bridges is going back to the grid. The 74-year-old actor told the Film Comment podcast (via The Playlist) that he is going to appear in “Tron: Ares,” the third film in the long-running sci-fi franchise that Bridges inaugurated with “Tron” in 1982 and reprised with “Tron: Legacy” in 2010.

EXCLUSIVE: Noomi Rapace is set to star in psychological thriller Reckoner, written and directed by Nissar Modi (writer of feature Z For Zachariah) who will be making his movie directorial debut.

EXCLUSIVE: France tv distribution has acquired world sales rights for Romuald Boulanger’s upcoming bio-pic Mansour, capturing the journey of celebrity tennis player Mansour Bahrami’s from post-Revolutionary Iran, to exile and poverty in France, and then fame on the international circuit.

Another day, another buzzy project to hit the Cannes Market. Deadline reports that Adam Scott will have a package for his feature directorial debut for sale on the Croisette next month: “Double Booked,” a revenge thriller set to star Sterling K.

EXCLUSIVE: Here’s a nice one. Emmy nominee Adam Scott (Severance) is set to star in and direct his first feature, Double Booked, alongside Oscar nominee Sterling K. Brown (American Fiction), Zazie Beetz (Atlanta), and Alexandra Daddario (The White Lotus).

The Cannes Film Festival may still be a few weeks away, but that doesn’t mean its film market can’t start heating up.  Deadline reports that a package for one of the buzzier titles to hit the Croisette ready to go. And while it’s a Chris Pratt vehicle, not exactly an actor who comes to mind when thinking of Cannes, it’ll likely be a success for whomever snatches it up.

EXCLUSIVE: ‘Peaky Blinders’ and ‘Gangs of London’ star Joe Cole and ‘True Spirit’ and ‘Titans’ actor Teagan Croft have both just wrapped contemporary neo-noir thriller Override, the fourth feature from directing duo Natasha Merkulova and Alexey Chupov. It marks the English-language debut for the Russian helmers, whose Captain Volkonogov Escaped played in Venice’s Competition strand in 2021.