In 2001, Thierry Frémaux arrived in Cannes with a mission to build a bridge to Hollywood.
The newly appointed festival director made a pilgrimage to Los Angeles to sell major studios on the benefits of having their films premiered on the Riviera. And he found himself two key believers in Tom Rothman and Jim Gianopulos, who were running 20th Century Fox at the time, and were trying to find the right platform to launch Moulin Rouge!, a jukebox musical directed by Baz Luhrmann and starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor as tragic lovers. They decided that Cannes, which helped shape France’s reputation as a global film destination, was the perfect fit for the film, which was a love letter to Paris. The opening night bash was one of the most famous in Cannes history. More than 1,000 guests partied as champagne flowed, can-can dancers performed and DJ Fatboy Slim manned the turntables.
“It was a very celebratory party,” Frémaux said at Variety’s opening night party at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival. “From that moment on, we felt like nothing could stop us.”
And for the next 25 years, Hollywood frequently decamped to the Croisette, with directors like Clint Eastwood (Mystic River), Martin Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon), George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road) and Steven Spielberg (The BFG) debuting their films at the festival’s massive Lumiere Theater. Blockbusters have also invested in glitzy Cannes premieres, from 2022’s “Top Gun: Maverick,” in which Tom Cruise looks up from the steps of a palace as military jets fly across the sky, to 2025’s “Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning.” But this year is a different story. There were hopes that Spielberg would hold a “Disclosure Day” or that Christopher Nolan would premiere “The Odyssey” at Cannes, but major studios have avoided the festival, saying it was too risky and expensive.
“I hope studio films come back,” Frémaux said at the festival’s opening press conference on Monday. But will it? Studio executives, agents and publicists believe future Cannes festivals will feature more Hollywood star power, but they warn that in a time of stress and budget cuts, going to the festival may not be worth the reward.
In theory, getting into Cannes should be easy for major American studios. It is loved by entertainers because of its charm and worldwide recognition. Marketers love it because it has a built-in blurb and is easy to improve (apart from cost, which we’ll get to later). But this year, multiple senior officials said the conglomerate had been particularly lax about the Cannes Film Festival’s harshest critics.
This festival, also known as the “Movie Hall of Fame,” has high expectations for the titles that will be screened both in and out of competition. Critics, especially international critics, can be harsh towards films that don’t meet their high standards. As the global box office continues to emerge from the slump following the pandemic and labor strikes, major studios “don’t have to worry” about bad reviews, one film executive told Variety. Indiana Jones and the Stars and Solo: A Star Wars Story received mixed reviews from Cannes, and both never recovered from their initial lackluster reviews, only to explode at the box office when they were released a few weeks later.
On the topic of coins, Cannes isn’t exactly cheap. The reason is not only that jet fuel supplies are depleted and the Strait of Hormuz is closed. Travel, lodging, stylists, glam, support staff, and distribution costs can cost upwards of $1 million for a major studio film, while independent American films can spend anywhere from $50,000 to $200,000 to get their film to a film festival. For major ensemble dramas, such as those that frequently co-star with Wes Anderson or flashy action films by the likes of Cruise, the costs can be truly eye-popping. It’s been a huge hit, according to an executive marketing executive who asked not to be named.
“We are putting every dollar into the opening weekend,” they said. “We need resources elsewhere.”
There is some hope that Netflix will finally return to Cannes since 2017, when it premiered Bong Joon-ho’s Okja and Noah Baumbach’s Meyrowitz Stories in extravagant fashion. But the company has not premiered any films at Cannes since the festival changed its rules to screen competition films in local theaters before distribution to quell protests from French exhibitors. But Netflix is softening its stance on multiplexes. Next year, Greta Gerwig’s The Chronicles of Narnia will be released in theaters for at least 45 days. If more films follow that mold, what’s stopping Netflix from making a big return to Cannes?
Neon is the only American independent film company to make a big splash this year, with the company bringing a whopping nine films to Cannes, including James Gray’s Paper Tiger, Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord, and Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s All of a Sudden. This is in part because festivals are deeply embedded in the company’s DNA, with Neon winning six consecutive Palme d’Ors, a fact the studio frequently emphasizes in its promotional materials. But not everyone is excited about neon’s big presence.
“It’s turned into a neon film festival,” one awards strategist complained, while another publicist said, “It’s quite annoying.”
