The Hollywood Reporter’s second Cannes Film Festival daily issue includes a look at how Hollywood studios are picking up more indies at fests, a new name attached to Steven Soderbergh’s Logan Lucky and a chat with LeVision’s CEO about the biggest Hollywood-China co-production to date.
“The Buyers Hate It”
The studios, with their deeper pockets and the leverage that comes from having global marketing and distribution networks, can, if they so choose, outbid most independents. That hasn’t traditionally been a problem. Until recently, beyond picking an occasional award-contender for U.S. release, the majors showed little interest in indies. But over the past few years, the studios have been upping their festival game.
Soderbergh’s Logan Lucky
The top-secret project — starring Channing Tatum and Michael Shannon as brothers who plan a heist during a high-profile NASCAR race — has added Riley Keough, who stars in the TV series The Girlfriend Experience. Soderbergh, who hasn’t helmed a movie since 2013’s medical thriller Side Effects, is returning to directing with the film, which has been shrouded in secrecy since it first broke ahead of the Berlin Film Festival in February.
Behind The Great Wall
LeVision and Thomas Tull’s Legendary Entertainment will soon release The Great Wall, the biggest U.S.-China co-production ever made. LeVision CEO Zhang Zhao spoke to THR of making the $160 million, 3D fantasy-action spectacle, directed by Chinese maestro Zhang Yimou and starring Matt Damon, Andy Lau and Willem Dafoe, along with a long list of China’s hottest young talent.
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