Jacques Audiard movies, Cronenberg 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 the world’s most notable film festival may be more subdued.

The culprit is a combination of last year’s actors’ and writers’ strike, which delayed production, as well as a tough economy that led studios to tighten 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 intelligence from industry insiders on both sides of the Atlantic, the next edition will have 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,” which were each. Nominated for five Oscars.

With the deadline for registering feature-length films for Cannes’ official selection approaching on Friday, a number of films remain to be screened by Cannes’ selection committee ahead of an April 11 press conference in Paris. Cannes chief Thierry Fremaux has already traveled to LA in January and is returning for the Oscars weekend, hoping to pick up a few more high-profile titles while in Hollywood.

While very few films have been formally invited by festivals, Diversity Some of the highest-profile European films and independent films confirmed are being submitted for Cannes 2024, including Jacques Audiard’s musical melodrama “Emilia Perez,” starring Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez; Kirill Serebrennikov’s “Limonov, The Ballad of Eddie” starring Ben Whishaw; Ali Abbasi’s Donald Trump movie “The Apprentice” starring Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong; Paolo Sorrentino’s untitled film with Gary Oldman; David Cronenberg’s “The Shrouds” starring Vincent Cassel and Diane Kruger; Audrey Dewan’s “Emmanuel” starring Noemi Merlant and Noemi Watts; Gilles Lelouch’s “L’Amour Ouf” starring Adele Exarchopoulos and Francois Civil; and Nabil Ayuch’s “Everybody Loves Today.” With the exception of Dewan, whose previous film “Happening” premiered at Venice (and won the Golden Lion), and Sorrentino, whose Netflix film “Hand of God” played at Venice, the other directors saw their last films premiere at Cannes.

Cannes is also eyeing Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Kinds of Kindness,” the helmer’s mystery follow-up to “Poor Things,” reuniting him with Emma Stone and distributor Searchlight Pictures; Andrea Arnold’s “Bird” starring Barry Keoghan and Franz Rogowski and Francis Ford Coppola’s self-produced epic “Megalopolis” with Adam Driver and Forest Whitaker. It will mark a major return for Coppola, who debuted his 1979 masterpiece “Apocalypse Now” 45 years ago at Cannes (it’s where he famously declared: “”We had too much money, too much equipment, and Slowly we moved in. Crazy…my film is not about Vietnam, it is is

Vietnam”). Quote-hungry journalists are salivating over the prospect of a Coppola press conference for “Megalopolis.

Long shots include Luca Guadagnino’s “queer,” which Cannes officials still want to see, according to insiders. Some expected films that won’t play in Cannes include Steve McQueen’s “Blitz” from AppleTV+ (it won’t make it in time) and Sam Taylor-Johnson’s “Back to Black,” the Amy Winehouse biopic. StudioCanal will release the two in the UK and France on April 12 and 24 respectively.

So far, the only blockbuster-sized US title in the pipeline for Cannes is George Miller’s “Furiosa,” a Warner Bros. It will release internationally on May 22. That’s no surprise since “Mad Max: Fury Road” made its debut at the 2015 festival. Unlike last year, when Cannes and Venice fought over the right to present Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” (Cannes predominate), we haven’t heard of a similar duel over a movie, and Netflix still isn’t expected to make a comeback on the Croisette. — at least not until Cannes allows streaming movies to enter the competition. The 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival will be held from May 14-25.

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