Cannes is bustling – specificially the market section of the world renowned festival which wraps this week. Our site managed to get a few scoops while eking in some tangible coverage via the trades and you can find those updates anchored in this tag.
Indeed there were lots more updates to cover that I couldn’t dive into individually, so I took the time and effort to culminate those updates accordingly for you below in case you haven’t caught up yet. If you’re just tuning in, I hope this helps, and I’ll keep this page updated in the days ahead. (Beneath the single asterisk is an earlier listing published on 5.17, with double asteriks atop updates published on 5.19).
• Contents Panda sold multiple sales at Cannes for Korean superhero adventure, Hi-Five, including Well Go USA for North America. Kang Hyung-chul directs the story of five people – recipients of organ transplats – who find themselves with superpowers battling a similarly-imbued force of evil. The film stars Lee Jae-in, Ahn Jae-hong, Ra Mi-ran, Kim Hee-won, and Yoo Ah-in. (SCREEN)
• Sentinel will be the first in a film production slate announced at Cannes this week, partnering 87Eleven Entertainment and Capstone Studios. Production begins in the fall with J. Houston Yang directing the story of “a blue-collar mechanic who finds himself on the run in an unforgiving wilderness hunted by a killer, a ruthless drone gone rogue, after he witnesses the assassination of his boss. With only an unlikely companion at his side, he has to survive a brutal night and uncover the truth.” (DEADLINE)
• Golden Network Asia landed multiple sales for The Shadow’s Edge. Jackie Chan reteams on screen with Tony Leung Ka Fai, and Ride On director Larry Yang, for the story of “a retired surveillance expert from the Macau police service who returns to action to help a team of elite young detectives take down a sophisticated criminal gang.” Zhang Zifeng, Ci Sha, and Seventeen member Jun also star. (VARIETY)
• Robert Luketic will direct survival thriller Resurface, from a script by Pete Bridges, for Forte Corps Pictures. The Australia-set film “chronicles the desperate race against time after an underwater earthquake devastates a deep-sea research mission at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Two stranded survivors must ascend 35,000 feet to the surface before their life support expires.” Elevate Production Finance is repping world sales at Cannes. (VARIETY)
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• Ip Man: Kung Fu Legend will see actor Dennis To reprise his titular role of the line of Ip Man spin-offs that began with 2010’s Ip Man: The Legend Is Born, and followed up with sequels in 2019 and 2021. All Rights Entertainment launched the film at Cannes with Beijing Huiyong Film and Television Media Co. producing in association with Well Go USA. (VARIETY)
• WestEnd Films is handling world sales for Traction starring Noomi Rapace and Luke Evans for director Lorraine Darrow. Production begins in August for the Spain-set actioner which follows a former US soldier as she and a trusted Chechen ally lead a humanitarian mission into war-torn Chechnya. They are joined by a jaded photographer, a teacher and her injured student as they make a desperate across the Caucasus mountains, struggling to evade Russian forces and guerilla fighters, all while unknowingly harboring a young rebel with a mysterious cargo. (VARIETY)
• Jinga Films repped world sales on Serbian revenge thriller, Sword Of Vengeance at Cannes, selling multiple terrories including Germany, the U.K., Spain and Japan. Nemanja Ceranic directs the film starring Igor Bencina as “a Mad Max style warrior who must take revenge on his enemies for the crimes they committed against his family.” (SCREEN)
• Upgrade has sold Violent Ends to Independent Film Company for North American Release. Billy Magnussen, Alexandra Shipp, and Nick Stahl star in the film about an honest man whose push toward a peaceful life with his fiancée gets upended when he’s pulled back into his former crime family through a brutal armed robbery. (SCREEN)
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• Back-to-back Hong Kong action crime prequels Cold War 1994 and Cold War 1995 are on deck from Edko Films Ltd. Daniel Wu and Terrance Lau are starring in the Longman Leung-directed films which proceed Leung’s previous two Cold War installments which he directed with Sunny Luk; the inaugural 2012 and 2016 films starred Aaron Kwok, Tony Leung Ka-Fai, and Eddie Peng, follows the explosive events of an operation to rescue captives following the theft of Police Emergency Unit van, unraveling a terroristic conspiracy that consumes both the Management and Operations arms of the Police. Bill Kong and Ivy Ho, who produced both films, are back aboard the franchise for the next two. (SCREEN)
• Chinese UFC Welterweight Li Jingliang will star in 8 Limbed Dragon, making his screen debut after 18 years fighting professionally in the octagon. Hong Kong-based Salty Pictures announced the film at Cannes with a story that follows a Chinese sanda fighter who travels to Bangkok and is taken under the tutelage of a one-eyed ex-Muay Thai champion, whilst in search of deeper martial arts mastery. The film is inspired by Gao Tixia’s non-fiction novella Sheng Si Quan Dou and includes elements of Li’s own life story. (THR)
• Vertical Entertainment has taken a summer release slate for Osiris, a new sci-fi actioner from director William Kaufman and starring Linda Hamilton and Max Martini. Kaufman directs from a script he wrote with Paul Reichelt, and centers a group of military commandos who find themselves captured aboard a mysterious spacecraft, and targeted by an alien race. XYZ reps world sales on the pic which also stars Brianna Hildebrand, LaMonica Garrett, and Linds Edwards. (VARIETY)
• IFC Films and Shudder have nabbed U.S. rights to period zombie thriller, Rapture. Playwright Jordan Tannahill makes his directing debut for a cast led by Will Poulter, Kit Connor, and Manu Ríos with plans to shoot later this year for a 2026 release. Taking place in 14th century medieval England, Rapture sees a mysterious contagion closing in on a remote stone monastery, leaving its monastic residents to torn by a moral rift in choosing to either help and protect people seeking salvation, and guarding the centuries-old secrets within the monastery from outside interlopers. (DEADLINE)
• JV 193 launched sales at Cannes for Oscar-winning actress Michelle Yeoh’s The Surgeon. Thunder Road is producing the franchise-hopeful, to be directed by Roshan Sethi whose script follows a retired surgeon who must use her 35 years of surgical experience to cut down her enemies and fight her way from captivity after being taken and coerced to operate on a mystery patient. The film is also part of a new film financing and development slate between Thunder Road and Untravelled Worlds, which also includes WW2 survival thriller Perdition, high stakes actioner The Nest, espionage thriller Moscow X, supernatural thriller Ghosting, and WW1 POW escape drama, The Confidence Men. (DEADLINE)
• Thunder Road is also behind The Peasant, a new period actioner billed as a cross between John Wick and Braveheart. Starring and directed by Dev Patel of Monkey Man fame, the story follows the 14-century Indian tale of “a shepherd who embarks on a rage-fueled campaign against a group of mercenary knights who ransacked his community, revealing himself to be more than he seems.” They are joined by Fifth Season which is financing and producing. (THR)
• Pedring Lopez (Maria, “Sellblock”) will direct Filipino action noir Shadow Transit, starring UK-based singer-songwriter Qymira and US-based, Indonesian-born actor Yoshi Sudarso. The Manila/Hong Kong production schedule starts in July with a story set against the backdrop of Manila’s underground DJ scene, red-light districts and drug corridors, and described as “a chase through survival, violence, and emotional reckoning – a grounded, visceral thriller exploring the fragility of trust in a chaotic world.” Hong Kong-based financing and production outlet ACT3 joins Lopez’s BlackOps Studios Asia in producing. (DEADLINE)
• Chee Keong Cheung’s Son Of The Soil will release in Nigeria as the film’s latest acquisition by Nile Enterterainment at Cannes. Sovereign Films and its genre label Action Xtreme are repping world sales on the film which stars British-Nigerian actor Razaaq Adoti who plays as a former Nigerian Spec-Ops paratrooper who wages a one-man war on a violent drug cartel that’s taken over his community in the wake of his sister’s death. Also starring are Iretiola Olusola Doyle, Patience Ozokwo and Sunshine Rosman, alongside Toyin Oshionke, Damilola Ogunsi, Taye Arimoro and Philip Asaya. (VARIETY)
• Dead In A Week (Or Your Money Back) helmer Tom Edmunds’s The Butler shoots in Ireland this Summer, with production casting Tom Hollander for the Jean Reno-led action thriller. The film, repped by K5 Intl. at the markets, is billed as a cross between “Downtown Abbey” and Die Hard, and follows “a former WWI commando turned domestic servant whose peaceful life is upended by mobsters collecting an old debt.” (VARIETY)
• Stuber helmer Michael Dowse and star Dave Bautista are reteaming for Trap House, the launchpad for U.S. distro outlet Aura Entertainment. Opening November 14, the film follows “a team of elite DEA agents whose rebellious teenage children use their parents’ own tactics—surveillance, infiltration, and non-lethal weapons—to rob a ruthless drug cartel.” Also starring are Jack Champion, Sophia Lillis, Tony Dalton, Whitney Peak, Kate Del Castillo, Zaire Adams, and Bobby Cannavale. (DEADLINE)
• REinvent Intl. Sales. is at Cannes with Zip Wire, from director Howard J. Ford. MyAnna Buring will star from a script by Ford and screenwriter Tom Boyle, and centers on a viral disease researcher whose latest cure discovery finds her on the run from a group of armed assailants within the walls of a high-security pharma lab. Forced to confront her childhood trauma, inner-fears and OCD, her only escape to safety is a treacherous zip wire high across the Dolomite mountains. (VARIETY)