Ruben Östlund’s ‘The Entertainment System is Down’ Will Only Start Production in “Early 2025”

We’re still a long ways away from seeing Ruben Östlund‘s next film.

In an interview with Deadline, the ”Triangle of Sadness” filmmaker confirms that he’s eyeing an “early 2025” shoot for his plane-set comedy. This means we probably won’t be seeing the film until its inevitable Cannes premiere in the summer of 2026.

“It’s being translated into English. We’ll be going everywhere for the casting… The aim is to shoot in early 2025,” the director told Deadline at the Les Arcs Film Festival in the French Alps earlier this week.

The film will be set on a long-haul flight whose entertainment system loses power as passengers become “modern human beings that have to deal with boredom and their own thoughts.”

Östlund plans on including a scene where a young boy asks to borrow his older brother’s iPad and is told he has to wait five minutes. “And then I want to challenge the audience,” Östlund teases. “You stay with the kid in real time. And he’s looking in the catalog, putting it back and the restlessness is coming. So he asks his mother, ‘How much do we have left?’ And she says, ‘Well, now it’s four minutes and 45 seconds, you have to calm down.’”

"When the audience starts to realise that this is a real-time shot, I think a lot of people are going to be very, very frustrated," he said, still chuckling. "I want to create history."

Östlund added that with this film he wants to cause the most walkouts in Cannes history. “And I think it’s going to be more provocative than any violent, any disturbing content,” he says. “Because to be left alone with your thoughts and challenging the audience to do the same thing, then it’s going to be very interesting.”

It must be great being Östlund. He’s just 49 years old and already has two Palme d’Or wins to his name. He also recently completed a stint as Jury President for the 76th Cannes Film Festival this past May.