Frances McDormand in Nomadland (via Indiewire)
Earlier this week The Los Angeles Times' Glenn Whipp assessed the field of films that he thinks could still be in the sites of FIlm Fests and in Oscar play. Whipp essentially comes down to three pieces of information about each of the 29 films that make it into his story: Distributor, production status and whether the film currently has a scheduled release date.
So, let's take a look at Whipp's list and talk about what titles based on his information and assessments might be festival bound...and, more specifically, Telluride-possible.
First...films that don't seem probable for Telluride:
Two Sundance films on the list meaning, if tradition holds, that no Telluride play would be in the cards: Florian Zeller's The Father starring Anthony Hopkins and Lee Issac Chung's Minari.
Then there are a dozen films from the Whipp list that have never really felt like Telluride films. They're films that I don't feel as if they ever planned a fall film fest appearance.
Spike Lee's Da 5 Bloods (Netflex/locked/unscheduled)
Denis Villeneuve's Dune (Warner Bors./post-prod/Dec. 18)
Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch (Searchlight/locked/Oct. 16)***
Ridley Scott's The Last Duel (20th Century/production suspended)
George C. Wolfe's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (Netflix/post-prod/unscheduled)
Paul Greengrass' News of the World (Universal/post-prod/Dec. 25)
Ryan Murphy's The Prom (Netflix/post-prod/unscheduled)
Liesl Tommy's Respect (MGM, post-prod/Dec. 25)
Docter and Powers' Soul (Disney/post-prod/Nov. 20)
Joanna Hogg's The Souvenir: Part II (A24/post-prod/unscheduled)
Christopher Nolan's Tenet (Warner Bros./locked/July 17)
Steven Spielberg's West Side Story (20th Century/post-prod/Dec. 18)
That said...within an unclear pandemic universe...who knows? Maybe some of these films end up playing at a festival.
The next categorization are films that are locked that feel like they could be Telluride and/or other fall film fest entrants:
Francis Lee's Ammonite (Neon/unscheduled)
Charlie Kaufman's I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Netflix/unscheduled)
Edoardo Ponti's The Life Ahead (Netflix/unscheduled)
Chloe Zhao's Nomadland (Searchlight/unscheduled- a note here, the article actually says its production status is uncertain...my feeling is that it's likely complete)
Then there are the films listed as being in post-production that, should they be completed in time, seem like Telluride and fall film fest possibles (included here is the post-production start date according to IMDb):
Leos Carax's Annette (Amazon/post-11-22-19/unscheduled)
Michael Showalter's The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Searchlight/post 12-23-19/unscheduled)
Ron Howard's Hillbilly Elegy (Netflix/post-IMDb says the film is complete/unscheduled)
David Fincher's Mank (Netflix/post-2-3-20/unscheduled)***
Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Memoria (Neon/post-10-13-19/unscheduled)
George Clooney's The Midnight Sky (Netflix/post-1-2-20/unscheduled)
Sofia Coppola's On the Rocks (A24/post-7-4-19)
Glen Keane's Over the Moon (Netflix/post-1-2-20/unscheduled)
Tom McCarthy's Stillwater (Focus Features/post-1-2-20/unscheduled)
Aaron Sorkin's Trail of the Chicago 7 (Paramount/post-12-17-19/unscheduled)***
Joe Wright's The Woman in the Window (20th Century/post-10-29-18/unscheduled...though it has been dated for release a couple of times)
***I have read somewhere that both Mank and Trial of Chicago 7 will likely not be ready for any of the fall fests.
Additionally, you'd have to expect that films that went into post after the start of 2020 are suspect simply because those films would only have been in post for a few weeks before the shutdown happened: The Midnight Sky, Over the Moon, Stillwater.
Even The Eyes of Tammy Faye with a Dec. 2019 post-production start date seem iffy to me.
Finally, for fun, let's factor in in directors who have been to Telluride in some capacity (director, writer or star) from these last two groups: Kaufman, Zhao, Fincher, Clooney, Coppola, McCarthy, Sorkin, Wright and I'll take a stab at five of these films making a Telluride lineup for 2020:
1) Nomadland
2) I'm Thinking of Ending Things
3) On the Rocks
4) Hillbilly Elegy
5) Ammonite
ANNECY PROCEEDS ONLINE
The Annecy Animation Film Fest, the largest animated film festival on the planet announced a few weeks back that this year's event had been cancelled but the fest will move forward with a completely online version of the event. The online fest will run June 15-20.
The details were reported by John Hopewell and Jamie Lang for Variety last Thursday.
Over the years, several films that have played the Annecy Fest have gone onto to play over the Labor Day weekend in Telluride. Examples that come to mind include: Loving Vincent and Chico and Rita.
The Variety story includes claims by the fest organizers that many of its customary players will be back for the virtual event.
May 18th is the date for the fest to announce its competition lineup.
EMAIL: mpgort@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment