On today’s episode of “Daily Variety” podcast, Variety’s Brent Lang and Elsa Keslassy analyze this year’s Cannes Film Festival lineup, which puts the accent on European auteur filmmakers. And top Hollywood litigator Patricia Glaser talks tough about social media, the Southern California economy, and she offers a full-throated defense of the embattled Casey Wasserman, in highlights from Variety‘s annual Power of Law breakfast event on April 8.
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The Cannes lineup, as predicted by Keslassy’s reporting last month, is dominated by European filmmakers and indie productions, with little in the way of Hollywood star power. Lang, who is Variety‘s executive editor, and Keslassy, international editor based in Paris, discuss what that signals about the world of moviemaking and Hollywood’s place in it.
“I think it has more to do with what’s going on in Hollywood right now, which is that studios are so consumed with franchise type films. The timing of Cannes in May means that the studios that are in the Oscar race and that do have more director-driven movies are a little hesitant to put them out in the public square that early, when they need to keep momentum building towards awards season,” Lang observes. “Elsa is absolutely right that the movies that you end up talking about [in Cannes] a lot of times are not the ones that have big stars. They’re more indie, they’re more European. However, there is this whole economic thing around Cannes, and I think it is disappointing that there aren’t some major studio films because whether or not they are good, they draw a lot of attention to the film festival, and it will be difficult for Cannes to have as much of a kind of a global presence because you don’t have Tom Cruise on the red carpet, you don’t have Steven Spielberg. I know they were going after [Spielberg’s upcoming film] ‘Disclosure Day’ or Christopher Nolan. I know they wanted ‘The Odyssey.’ I think if you had just had one of those movies, you would be looking at a very, very different conversation.”
Keslassy says the lineup shows a clear trend of France becoming a bigger player in the financing of high-profile global films.
“We are seeing France really rising as a creative hub for the industry but also as a financing hub because France has a lot of subsidies. It has a lot of producers and distributors and agents who are really scouting the world, looking for the next gems, backing auteurs,” she says. “So we’re really seeing that taking shape. Joachim Trier’s movie ‘Sentimental Value.’ ‘The Secret Agent,’ Jafar Panahi’s film [2025’s ‘It Was Just an Accident’] — all these movies had French financing. This year we’re seeing three foreign filmmakers. László Nemes, Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Jafar Panahi, all making movies in French with French casts. I think it’s really a big trend.”
Variety‘s Power of Law breakfast on April 8 was an SRO affair attended by many of the dozens of attorneys featured on this year’s Legal Impact Report. Patricia Glaser, the veteran litigator who is often in the thick of so many high-wattage conflicts, was this year’s Power of Law career achievement honoree.
Glaser had a lot to say about social media, the state of Southern California’s economy and political leadership and she offered a strong defense of Casey Wasserman, who has faced fallout from his association with Ghislaine Maxwell and the fact that his correspondence with her from 2003 is included the FBI’s voluminous Epstein files database.
On the state of Hollywood’s hometown business, Glaser was asked to respond to a comment that filmmaker Paul Feig made earlier in the event in his conversation with Variety‘s Matt Donnelly. Feig declared flatly that “those mega-deals I think are over” in a lively conversation about how he navigates the theatrical and streaming marketplace for his crowd-pleasing films. This conversation will be featured in full on the April 10 episode of “Daily Variety’s” companion interview podcast, “Strictly Business.”
Glaser concurred with Feig the film and TV business is in a state of contraction. But she said the payday opportunities out there are more nuanced.
“Somebody who’s been hugely successful as a television producer suddenly doesn’t have a guaranteed 12 episodes or 24 episodes, but has a guarantee of three episodes. That changes the whole way people look at producing and whether they want to continue doing it,” Glaser said. “I talked to a friend of mine who’s a very well-known producer, who said maybe it’s not worth it to get three episodes on Amazon or whatever, because it’s a lot of work and not a lot of remuneration because there’s no back end on many of these deals. So, it is what it is. But will Tom Cruise continue to get a big figure? Of course, in my opinion.”
(Pictured: Closing ceremony of the 78th annual Cannes Film Festival on May 24, 2025)
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