Jacques Audiard, Cronenberg films in the mix

At last year’s Cannes Film Festival, Leonardo DiCaprio, Harrison Ford, and Scarlett Johansson hit the red carpet to premiere their latest big movies. But Hollywood’s presence at the 2024 edition of one of the world’s most notable film festivals could be significantly reduced.

The culprit is a combination of last year’s actors’ and writers’ strikes, which caused production delays, as well as a tough economy, which caused studios to tighten their purse strings. But there will still be stars on the Croisette, in addition to “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig, who will preside over the jury.

Based on input from industry insiders on both sides of the Atlantic, the upcoming edition will feature a greater emphasis on European writers, along the lines of Justin Triot’s “Anatomy of a Fall” and Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest.” Nominated for five Oscars.

While the deadline to register feature-length films for Cannes’ official selection approaches on Friday, a number of films remain to be screened for the Cannes selection committee ahead of the April 11 press conference in Paris. Cannes chief Thierry Frémaux already traveled to LA in January and is returning at the end of the week for the Oscars in hopes of securing a few more high profile titles while in Hollywood.

While very few films have been formally invited by the festival, Diversity has confirmed that some of the highest-profile European films and independent films are being submitted for Cannes 2024, including Jacques Audiard’s musical melodrama “Emilia Pérez” starring Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez; Kirill Serebrennikov’s “Limonov, The Ballad of Eddie” starring Ben Whishaw, and “The Disappearance” starring August Diehl as Nazi doctor Josef Mengele; Ali Abbasi’s Donald Trump film “The Apprentice” starring Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong; Paolo Sorrentino’s eponymous film with Gary Oldman; David Cronenberg’s “The Shrouds” starring Vincent Cassel and Diane Kruger; Babak Anvari’s “Hello Road” starring Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys; Audrey Dewan’s “Emmanuelle” starring Noémie Merlant and Noémie Watts; Gilles Lellouche’s “L’Amour Oeuf” starring Adèle Exarchopoulos and François Civil; and Nabil Ayouch’s “Everybody Loves Touda.” With the exception of Dewan, whose previous film “The Happening” premiered at Venice (and won the Golden Lion), and Sorrentino, whose Netflix film “Hand of God” premiered at Venice, all other directors have premiered their last films at Cannes. I saw.

Cannes is also eyeing Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Kinds of Kindness,” a mysterious follow-up from the “Poor Things” director that reunites him with Emma Stone and distributor Searchlight Pictures; Andrea Arnold’s “Bird” stars Barry Keoghan and Franz Rogowski, and Francis Ford Coppola’s self-made epic “Megalopolis” stars Adam Driver and Forest Whitaker. It would be a major return to form for Coppola, who debuted his 1979 masterpiece “Apocalypse Now” at Cannes 45 years ago (which is where he famously declared: “‘We have too much money, too much There were equipment, and slowly we moved forward crazy…My film is not about Vietnam, it is about Is Vietnam”). Quote-hungry journalists are salivating at the prospect of a Coppola press conference for “Megalopolis.”

According to insiders, long shots include Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer,” which Cannes officials still want to see. Some anticipated films that won’t play at Cannes include Steve McQueen’s “Blitz” from AppleTV+ (it won’t be completed on time) and Sam Taylor-Johnson’s “Back to Black,” the Amy Winehouse biopic. StudioCanal will release both of them in the UK and France on April 12 and 24, respectively.

So far, the only blockbuster-sized American title in the pipeline for Cannes is George Miller’s “Furiosa,” which was produced by Warner Bros. Will be released internationally on May 22. This is no surprise since “Mad Max: Fury Road” made its debut at the 2015 festival. Unlike last year, when Cannes and Venice battled for the rights to debut Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” (Cannes won), we haven’t heard of a similar duel over a film, And Netflix still doesn’t expect to make a return to the Croisette — at least not until Cannes allows streaming films to debut in competition. The 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival will take place from May 14-25.

Alex Rittman, Nick Vivarelli and Brent Lang contributed to this report.