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Negative reviews, 'controlled' promotions 'scare' Hollywood blockbusters away from Cannes Film Festival 2026
Not a single Hollywood blockbuster is slated to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival for the first time in years.
It wasn't long ago that Tom Cruise wowed the attendees at the Cannes Film Festival as Top Gun: Maverick premiered at the prestigious film festival. In the last decade, the latest Star Wars and Indiana Jones films have premiered at the French Riviera as well. But 2026 paints a different picture. Not a single Hollywood blockbuster is programmed there, raising questions about why US studios are ghosting the event.
Hollywood biggies give Cannes a miss
While Cannes is always a celebration of cinema of the artistic kind, the big films - and their stars - help draw attention to the same red carpets walked by auteur directors and the casts of obscure arthouse productions. This year, Cannes will have to make do without that support from Hollywood's elite.
Cannes director Thierry Fremaux made platforming American productions a priority when he took over 25 years ago. But this time, even had to address their absence. When he unveiled the line-up of films last month, Fremauz said, “Outside of studio filmmaking, independent cinema -- cinema made somewhere other than Los Angeles -- continues to exist.” Two independent American films are part of the main competition: Paper Tiger" by James Gray, starring Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, as well as The Man I Love by Ira Sachs featuring Rami Malek. But there is nothing from the Hollywood behemoths like Universal, Disney, Warner, Sony and Paramount, as well as streaming giants Netflix and Amazon.
'Nervousness' around negative reviews
The Berlin Film Festival faced a similar predicament earlier this year, with a blockbuster-free lineup. Festival director Tricia Tuttle blamed it on Hollywood's low-risk appetite and commercial pressures.
“There's a nervousness in a very difficult marketplace: nervousness about reviews coming out long before release and about controlling the way films of that scale are launched because there's so much at stake,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in January.
Tuttle said the fate of Joker: Folie a Deux, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2024 before bombing at the box office, made Hollywood ‘reticent’ about film festivals.
More controlled promotions, not dependant on festivals
Hollywood insiders say the film industry is making fewer ‘Cannes-compatible’ films now, and studios are looking to control their release schedules rather than have them dictated by a festival. J. Sperling Reich, a Los Angeles-based film critic, told AFP, “They're essentially flying in talent, trying to figure out a publicity narrative…two, three, sometimes four months early (before launch), and then they expose that film to the world's toughest critics. If it doesn't fly in Cannes, it's going to be tough to recover from that.”
There are several big films lined up for release this year, including Christopher Nolan's upcoming ancient Greek epic Odyssey and Steven Spielberg's science-fiction Disclosure Day. At another time, either or both would have been Cannes films. But this year, neither is heading to the festival.
But Hollywood is not totally absent from Cannes 2026. The festival has added a Fast and Furious special screening to mark the franchise's 25th anniversary. Original stars Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster are flying in.
