EXCLUSIVE: At the moment, the Cannes Film Festival is expected to take place on July 6th, even as France currently remains in semi-lockdown due to a surge of COVID-19 cases. Regardless, the European movie industry needs Cannes to happen and a very Euro-centric lineup is said to be in the works.
With all that being said, a source deep within the selection committee of the festival is telling me that Thierry Fremaux and the gang are desperately trying to nab Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film “Soggy Bottom” for official competition. Suffice to say, this would be a major get for Cannes and it could lead to a reluctant U.S. press corps actually making the trek down to the croisette two months from now.
However, there is a major issue at hand here. Anderson is willing to finish editing his film by July for Cannes, but distributors behind his latest film are telling him to wait it out for the fall festivals instead (Toronto, Venice, Telluride, New York). They not only want Anderson to take his time completing the picture, but don’t believe that going to Cannes is a good idea given the logistics that would come in premiering a film in Europe in the middle of a pandemic.
Of course, Cannes boss Thierry Fremaux very much wants “Soggy Bottom” to have its world premiere there and is going that extra mile to try and attain this golden nugget of a film. There has been a lot of back-and-forth between the festival and ‘Soggy’, but ultimately, what I am being told is that, unless things improve quickly in France with the COVID situation, we’re most likely going to see the film have its world premiere at Venice in September.
Anderson has not had a film premiere at Cannes since 2002’s “Punch Drunk-Love.” If “Soggy Bottom” does manage to sneak into Cannes 2021, it would quite simply be the most anticipated title of this year’s edition of the fest.
Following “Air,” this is Affleck’s latest stint behind the camera. He has cast himself in the lead role, alongside Kerry Washington, Steven Yeun, and Gillian Anderson (“The X-Files”).