Driving Cannes Film Market to new record
CANNES: Asian visitors have driven the Cannes Film Market to a new record in attendance.
China finally made the difference.
Up 21 per cent to 600 delegates, China helped drive attendance at the Marché du Film to an alltime record of 12,324 accredited participants, up some 400 on 2016.
Chinese and Asian markets also drove the lion’s share of new business at Cannes, not only in big US indie action movies as in the past but bigger European titles as well: Witness, for example, Weying closing China on nine Wild Bunch titles, including competition frontrunner Loveless and Redoutable, in one flagship deal. In contrast, sales to the US only really kicked in briefly in a late market flurry.
Japan (up 13 per cent to 309 attendees), Korea (up nine per cent to 286 attendees) and India, the Marché du Film’s guest country (rising 26 per cent to 204 attendees), also contributed to this year’s attendance uptick, and Japan to trading.
“Beyond Europe, which is our strategic core territory and quite dynamic this year, Asia – especially China, Japan and South East Asia – really stood out at this year’s Cannes market,” said Anna Marsh, Studiocanal executive vice president, international distribution, announcing near international sell- outs on Studiocanal’s flagship big English-language projects, the Working Title’s Radioactive, starring Rosamund Pike; and Nima Nourizadeh’s The Tracking of a Russian Spy, produced by The Picture Company.
By way of contrast, “If any territory was a little softer this year, it was South Korea,” Marsh noted.
Cannes biggest single national presence, as in years past, remained the US, with 2,113 participants. In terms of international sales to countries beyond the US, it was US companies which, as is customary, made some of the biggest international sales announcements, Glen Basner’s Film Nation unveiling mid-week that it has near sold out in international a doublebill of upcoming Sebastian Lelio movies: Disobedience, with Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams; a project with Julianne Moore, inspired by Lelio’s Gloria.
US market deals remained far slower, until a flurry of announcements in late week when the market for many companies had wound down.
In something of a late market surge , Cohen Media Group bought Michel Hazanavicius’ Jean-Luc Godard biopic
Beyond Europe, which is our strategic core territory and quite dynamic this year, Asia – especially China, Japan and South East Asia – really stood out at this year’s Cannes market.
Anna Marsh, Studiocanal executive vice president
Redoubtable from Wild Bunch; Lionsgate’s acquisition of Aardman Animation’s Early Man, financed and sold by Studiocanal, was confirmed at a Lionsgate results call; IFC took Lars von Trier’s upcoming serial killer thriller House That Jack Built. A24 tied down the US on Sean Baker’s The Florida Project, one of Cannes’ hottest tickets after a rave bow in Directors’ Fortnight.
Maybe the most active of US companies were STX and The Orchard. STX brought Ridley Scott’s All the Money in the World onto the market at Cannes and took Amy Schumer’s I Feel Pretty off the market, buying the US for a reported US$ 15 million in perhaps the biggest deal of this year’s Cannes.
As more and more movies compete for tougher theatrical release slots – the Cannes Film Market saw 910 movies screen at Cannes, and an enormous 3,820 titles sold at its market – the Cannes Film Market has become ever more proactive in guiding participants towards on-the-rise national territories, festivals or even sectors that are seeing market growth.
Among growth drivers, having steadily increased in recent years, the number of documentaries on sale at Cannes soared to 650, up on 2016. That also reflects the success of Marché documentary initiatives, including the extension of the Doc Corner and second edition of the Cannes Film Market’s Doc Day, with two packed out conversations with Amos Gitai and Jude Ratnam, director of Demons in Paradise, said Cannes Film Market director Jerome Paillard.
“Despite relatively small budgets, Jordan Peele’s Get Out, M. Night Shyamalan’s Split and James Wan’s The Conjuring have smashed the US$ 200 million mark. worldwide box office,” said Ángel Sala, Sitges Festival director, observed.
“That didn’t happen years ago,” he added.
As some genre movies punch extraordinary numbers, the Marché launched a highly successful platform for the Fantasia/Frontières genre festival and market, including a Fantasia/Frontieres Proof of Concept presentation of 11 genre film projects from Europe and North America.
With Alejandro G. Iñarritu’s Carne y Arena vindicating Virtual Reality as both an art form and social issue vehicle, the Market focused this year at its Next innovation hub, on VR. Next screened 85 VR films. “VR exhibitors were able to meet far more industry players than ever before,” Paillard added.