We are now into the second full week of the Cannes Film Festival. Incredible, really. And kicking things off, we have the craziest movie of the festival so far – a gonzo monster movie from South Korea – and lingering questions about how much the festival is missing glitzy Hollywood fare.
A New “Hope”
Just when the festival felt like the sleepiest it had been in years, along comes “Hope” to shake things up. The new film from South Korean auteur Na Hong-jin, whose last film was the brilliant “The Wailing” back in 2016, is being described as an absolutely insane sci-fi monster movie, with a single chase taking up much of its first hour (the movie clocks in at a whopping 160 minutes) and its major international stars appearing as extraterrestrial invaders (among them: Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander). Incredibly, the movie screened in competition for the Palme d’Or.
Almost as soon as the movie had emptied at Cannes, domestic distributor NEON released a killer teaser. Watch it below.
The responses to “Hope” were very strong, on both sides of the aisle. Some complemented its audaciousness and technical rigor, while others were turned off by what is pretty universally described as terrible computer-generated monsters (done by a small VFX outfit) and a wobbly structure that sags uncomfortably in the movie’s middle section.
Our review by Chase Hutchinson called it an “all-time great new action film” and embraced its liberal mixture of moods, tones and genres.
“It’s a lean, mean action thrill ride, kicking off with one of the best extended sequences in recent memory and proceeding to run with that energy for as long as it possibly can. It’s a consistently bloody yet still darkly hilarious horror movie, boasting plenty of creative and gruesome kills as well as playful jokes. It then even takes a turn into being a potential sci-fi epic, going for something that’s more unexpectedly galaxy-brained while managing to stick the landing with plenty of flair to spare,” the review reads.
Whether or not the movie has a shot at the festival’s top prize remains to be seen; after all the jury is being presided over by Park Chan-wook, a South Korean auteur who knows a thing or two about outré filmmaking.
One thing’s for sure – with its oversized action sequences, franchise ambitions (Na said at the press conference that he’s already written a sequel), starry cast and big budget (it’s the most expensive film ever produced in South Korea), it’s the closest this year’s festival has come to a big Hollywood movie.
And how badly has the festival needed one of those?
Bring Back Hollywood
Our very own Steve Pond writes that Cannes is in desperate need of some Hollywood sizzle.
Pond writes that, when the festival began, he didn’t think that it needed the old razzle-dazzle that had brought titles like “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning,” “Shrek” and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” (among countless others) to the South of France. But at the midway point of this year’s festivities, he’s starting to reassess his thought process.
“At the halfway mark of a festival that is missing the kind of major-studio premieres that have taken place at most recent Cannes, there’s a distinct lack of excitement. At one point this weekend, I found myself in a conversation with a couple of festival veterans who were speaking nostalgically of how much fun Cannes had been in 2021,” Pond wrote.
He points to the strong list of auteurs that would be a part of this year’s festival – among them Pedro Almodovar, Andrey Zvyagintsev, James Gray, Pawel Pawlikowski, Asghar Farhadi, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Nicolas Winding Refn, Steven Soderbergh – as being more than enough against, say, a world premiere of Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi film “Disclosure Day” or Christopher Nolan’s historical epic “The Odyssey.”
“And yet, the first few days have been lackluster at best. And maybe some Hollywood movies and big stars would have helped. After all, wouldn’t it have been cool to see Odysseus’ boat parked out there in the Mediterranean between a couple of those huge yachts?” Pond wrote.
The closest thing that this year’s festival has come to the days of yore was the premiere of John Travolta’s directorial debut, which included an honorary Palme d’Or for the actor and a 10-mintue montage of his career. And then the “movie,” which will be Apple TV next week, started. “It’s an exceedingly slight 60-minute production in which Travolta reads his 29-year-old children’s book and we see sweet but cheesy and amateurish footage re-creating the fabulous cross-country airplane flight Travolta took as a kid,” Pond said.
At least after Tom Cruise’s honorary Palme d’Or they showed “Top Gun: Maverick.”
Still, there’s plenty more to come at the festival and lots of exciting premieres, which Pond notes ruefully.
“If you look at it that way, Cannes 2026 is a true international melting pot that speaks in every language except Hollywood blockbuster, which shouldn’t be a problem,” Pond wrote. “But, you know, maybe it is.”
Even More AI
Sharon Waxman, in her latest Waxword column, discusses how this year’s festival is confronting (and, in some cases, coddling up to) artificial intelligence.
“What’s clear is that the AI has turned a corner among some film professionals, from being the object of panic and hostility and existential threat to real curiosity over how the technology can be leveraged to make filmmaking more economically viable,” Waxman wrote.
She continued: “The conversation around ‘assistive AI’ – tools that help with things like foreign language dubbing, matching images to dubbing or line changes and back office production – is where the focus is. These are efficiency tools that don’t particularly threaten copyright or creative output.”
Among those who have weighed in on the subject at the festival are Demi Moore, who urged understanding and not aggression towards the technology and Darren Aronofsky, who has embraced it wholeheartedly while making some pretty halfhearted comments (particularly about Orson Welles utilizing the tech). There was also Steven Soderbergh, who had a new John Lennon documentary at the festival that featured some generative AI imagery that elicited jeers from those who saw it. There was also Guillermo del Toro, a staunchly anti-AI filmmaker, who was at the festival to present a new edition of his handcrafted masterpiece “Pan’s Labyrinth” (and to talk about how much he thinks AI sucks).
In other words – the debate around AI might be softening but there are still soldiers on both sides.
As Scott Mann, a co-founder of Flawless, an AI company, told Waxman: “People don’t know how to talk about it. Assistive AI is safe and everyone is using it. But it’s like The Force. It has a good side and a dark side. The dark side is a devastating story that will destroy the industry. But things have fundamentally changed where it is accepted technologically. That’s not a question anymore.”
“Club Kid” Sells Big
While the Cannes marketplace has been as sleepy as the film festival itself, there has been one big sale – Jordan Firstman’s “Club Kid,” which sold to A24 for a whopping $17 million. That is huge.
A24 came out on top after a fierce bidding war, with additional suitors Netflix, Focus Features, Searchlight Pictures and MUBI all vying for the film, which played as part of the Un Certain Regard program.
The film follows a party promoter (Firstman) who grapples with his new life as a dad, when faced with a child he never knew he had. Cara Delevingne, Diego Calva, newcomer Reggie Absolom and Eldar Isgandarov also star.
Our review of the film, by Zachary Lee, said that it “radiates queer joy.”
“It’s an earnest, heartwarming, and vivacious look at the realities of parenting and a celebration of the warmth and love in unconventional lifestyles. At the same time, Firstman often gets in his own way, commandeering the film to act as PR (or damage control) for himself, rather than following the natural path of this unvarnished story,” wrote Lee.
No release date has been revealed but it’s likely that “Club Kid” will be released by the end of the year. One thing’s for sure – the rave-inspired merchandise on the A24 online shop is going to be banging.
