Overview
- Cannes, which opens Tuesday, features no major Hollywood studio blockbusters in its 2026 lineup.
- Festival leaders and industry figures say studios want tight control of launches and worry that early negative reviews could depress ticket sales.
- Publicists point to seven-figure travel and security costs in Cannes and to release calendars, noting the festival premiere works best only when a film opens within weeks, as with Top Gun: Maverick in 2022.
- The slate leans into global auteurs with films from Pedro Almodóvar, Asghar Farhadi and Pawel Pawlikowski, while two U.S. indies — James Gray’s Paper Tiger and Ira Sachs’ The Man I Love — compete for the Palme d’Or.
- Hollywood still has a footprint through a Fast and Furious 25th‑anniversary screening with Vin Diesel and co., and analysts describe the pullback as transactional and likely to ease when timing and strategy line up.