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Todd Olsson will stop at nothing to get studios interested in his films.
To drum up interest in screenings of “Wardriver,” a Dane DeHaan crime thriller that Olsson’s company, Highland Film Group, is selling at Cannes, he channeled those hyperventilating tastemakers who have become ubiquitous on social media and shot a fake “review” of the film.
“This movie moves!” a very caffeinated Olsson exclaims in one of the parody TikTok videos he sent to potential buyers. “It’s got action, sex, cars and one of my favorite things — hacking into networks and stealing f–king money!”
Sign-ups for screenings of “Wardriver” surged.
“We acted like complete imbeciles and made asses of ourselves in order to get people to pay attention and somehow it worked,” says Olsson, who serves as Highland’s president of international sales. “Maybe it’s the magic of TikTok, but people seem to pay attention to a 25-second video more than a regular invitation.”
It’s never been harder for film industry vets like Olsson to cut through the clutter. There’s so much competing for people’s time, that creating posters, cutting sizzle reels, even convincing an actor to make the trek to Cannes for meets and greets may not be enough to convince a studio to sign the dotted line.
Cannes, with its splashy premieres, movie stars decked out in the hautest of haute couture and dazzling Riviera backdrop, still offers an arresting display of cinema’s global influence. The red carpet has been rolled out again this year, and A-listers from Denzel Washington to Tom Cruise will soon be on hand to promote their latest films. But there’s no escaping the fact that the power of movies to both reflect and shape culture is at a low ebb. The box office hasn’t returned to pre-COVID levels, streamers and studios are cutting back their spending and deals of the sort that Olsson and others flock to the South of France to secure are harder to land.
“It’s not as healthy a business as it was a few years ago,” says Kent Sanderson, president of Bleecker Street Media. “Streamers were investing heavily in movies and there’s been a slowdown. There’s an imbalance between the number of slots studios and streamers have versus the number of films with significant budgets that are trying to find homes.”
At Sundance, that imbalance was profound. With the exception of a few big sales, such as Neon’s $17 million purchase of “Together,” most movies had to wait until long after buyers left Park City to find a home. Some industry veterans believe that the sluggish market was because many movies that premiered at Sundance seemed undercooked, a side effect of the 2023 actors’ and writers’ strikes that upended production.
The hope is that Cannes will have more of what entertainment companies want. On paper, at least, there are plenty of compelling finished films and packages. These include festival premieres such as “Nouvelle Vague,” Richard Linklater’s look at the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s “Breathless,” and “Urchin,” a drama about a drifter that marks Harris Dickinson‘s feature directing debut. There’s also a number of promising films that are looking for studio support before their cameras roll, such as “The Invite,” Olivia Wilde‘s follow-up to “Don’t Worry Darling”; “Prima Facie,” an adaptation of a Tony-winning play with Cynthia Erivo; and “Bunker,” a thriller from “The Father” director Florian Zeller that stars Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz.
“After the strikes, it was slow getting back on track,” says Glen Basner, the CEO of FilmNation. “Over the last two months, it’s feeling like a more normalized environment. People are getting back to work and they’re focused in on what is exciting to them, and that means we’re seeing better material.”
John Sloss, the founder of sales and management company Cinetic Media, is also cautiously optimistic. Despite the cost-cutting around Hollywood, he thinks there are still a number of companies willing to write big checks for the right movie.
“Netflix is as active in the market as it’s always been,” he says. “Disney is feeling its way back from the pandemic. Warners is having a good go at it.”
But buyers with cash to spend might not be enough to make this a festival to remember. Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump cast a shadow over Cannes before it even kicked off by announcing on social media that he planned to institute a 100% tariff on all films “produced in foreign lands.” The White House positioned the levies as a way to curb runaway production and reinvigorate filmmaking in the U.S., but the proposal worried the film industry, particularly the independent sector of the business, which relies on heavily on foreign incentives to finance movies.
As Cannes opens this week, executives feel more confident that a compromise can be reached because Trump has backed away, saying publicly that no final decisions have been made.
“It’s hard to understand how [tariffs] would work,” says Olsson. “Does it apply to the company that makes the film or to the U.S. distributor who buys it? How do you police that? By the time they figure that out, I’m not even sure Trump will be in office.”
English (US) ·