I have been insisting, for months now, that Netflix and Cannes can solve their issues and come to an agreement with Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” being part of the possible solution. Well, now that we are hearing that Scorsese’s film won’t even be ready on time for May fest, Variety is confirming that the streaming giant will be skipping the festival entirely for the second year in a row.
What does this mean? It means Netflix titles such as Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” Steven Soderbergh’s “The Laundromat,” David Michod’s “The King,” the Safdie brothers’ “Uncut Gems”, and an untitled Noah Baumbach film will not debut at Cannes and will most likely wait until fall film festival season. For shame.
Variety reports “The Irishman” is, quite simply, not ready for a May premiere. That fact that Scorsese is using the same VFX technology as the one used in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is slowing down the post-production process . This same VFX has made “The Irishman” budget skyrocket to a reported $140 million.
According to Variety, Cannes director Thierry Fremaux had been vehemently trying to get Scorsese’s film “over the last several months,’ he didn’t want the to repeat the same mistake as last year, when Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma,” which had to skip Cannes due to the Netflix ban, went on to compete and win the top prize at Venice.
The 2019 Cannes Film Festival takes place May 14-25.
Paul Greengrass’ "The Uprising," starring Andrew Garfield, opened to $3.2M from 2,068 theaters this weekend. Yikes. The budget hasn’t been disclosed, but is said to be in the $20-$30M range.