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Source: Variety
The 2022 film awards season may be a thing of the past now that the Academy Awards have come and gone as they do every year (choosing the unexpected breakout “Everything Everywhere All at Once” as its Best Picture recipient), but that doesn’t mean the film awards and festival circuit will have much time to take a breather. In fact, many of the most prestigious and renowned international film festivals are currently making plans to hold their respective yearly events and showcase the finest cinematic works they are willing to present on the big screen. Of these film festivals, few are as esteemed as the Cannes Film Festival, which will be holding its 76th annual event between May 16th and 27th of this year. Since its inception in 1946, the Cannes Film Festival, located in the French city of Cannes, has exhibited some of the most beloved and acclaimed films of all time, many of which have been awarded with the festival’s highest honor, the Palme d’Or. Past Palme d’Or winners like Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver”, Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction”, and Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite” have all gone on to be known as genuine cinematic classics in the years since their victories at Cannes, proving that just about any film that receives the opportunity to be at least screened at the festival is most likely something special. This makes it all the more noteworthy whenever a highly anticipated film is announced to be holding its premiere at Cannes, as there’s an implication that the film is even more worthy of one’s attention than many had previously thought. Naturally, this seems to be the case with one of the latest films that was just recently revealed to be having a premiere at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival, “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”.
Following in the footsteps of last year’s “Top Gun: Maverick”, which premiered at the previous Cannes Film Festival and went on to be both a Best Picture nominee at the Academy Awards and one of the year’s highest-grossing films, “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”, the fifth installment of the long-running action-adventure series first conceived by director Steven Spielberg and producer George Lucas in 1981, is currently making plans to be screened at the 76th Cannes Film Festival. This won’t be the first instance in which Indiana Jones made an appearance at the festival – his previous film, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” had in fact opened the 2008 event – so many are expecting the return of cinema’s most famous archaeologist to the French film festival to be met with a warm welcome, especially considering that there are quite a few things about this latest entry into the series that seem to make it especially noteworthy.
For one thing, while Spielberg and Lucas are still attached to the film as its executive producers, this will mark the first time that the former has not directed, as Spielberg had previously helmed all the previous “Indiana Jones” films since the original “Raiders of the Lost Ark” in 1981. Fortunately, the film does appear to be in good hands under the leadership of James Mangold, who had previously received great acclaim for not only his 2019 Best Picture nominee “Ford v. Ferrari”, but also his 2017 superhero film “Logan”, which received great acclaim for how well of a send-off it was for Hugh Jackman’s beloved X-Men character Wolverine. The high quality of “Logan” might be a particularly good indicator of what “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” might be like, as the film is believed to be the last in which lead actor Harrison Ford will play the iconic titular character. Though his supporting cast is no less noteworthy, as it features such international stars as Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Mads Mikkelsen, all eyes will most likely be on Ford as he dons the fedora for what it most likely the grand finale of his portrayal of Indiana Jones.
At the moment, publicly-released plot details have been kept to a minimum, though it’s all but certain that the film will feature flashbacks featuring Jones (de-aged using the latest in digital effects technology) fighting against Nazis as he had in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”. Still, that lack of knowledge is only making filmgoers all the more curious as to how the film will play out, and that craving for information will almost certainly be satisfied sooner than originally planned should “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” premiere at the Cannes Film Festival as reports currently suggest. At the moment, the film is most likely to be screened on either the second day of the festival (May 17th) or the third (May 18th); this puts it in a similar position to the aforementioned “Top Gun: Maverick”, which also premiered early on in the festival and used that initial goodwill to propel itself to a worldwide gross of nearly $1.5 billion and an Oscar nomination for Best Picture.
“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” might not be the only major Hollywood release to benefit from exhibition at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival though. In fact, there are quite a few noteworthy titles that are currently being considered for inclusion in the festival line-up. Among the most notable is Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon”, which the Cannes Film Festival has actually secured already and will mark the first instance in which a work of his has been shown at the festival since his 1985 film “After Hours” (for which he was given a Best Director award by the festival jurors). Budgeted at around $200 million, this epic western starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons, Brendan Fraser and Robert De Niro looks to be one of Scorsese’s most ambitious cinematic endeavors yet, one that will definitely benefit from whatever buzz it could generate from a screening at Cannes. Also be considered for exhibition at Cannes is “Asteroid City”, the latest film from Wes Andeson that features Tom Hanks, Margot Robbie, Scarlett Johansson, and Tilda Swinton among its main cast.
These films and many others are among those that will (or at least could) be named once the Cannes Film Festival publicly unveils its Official Selection on April 13th. With Ruben Östlund, whose 2022 film “Triangle of Sadness” was awarded with last year’s Palme d’Or, presiding over the twelve-day event, it’s all but certain that the 76th Cannes Film Festival will be one that many will want to pay close attention to.
