Weekly Digest: 05.18.2026
Weekly Digest For Recent Film Industry News That Caught My Attention For The Week Of 05.18.2026
Introduction
This is your weekly digest for recent film industry news that caught my attention for the week of 05.18.2026.
Recent Film Industry News That Caught My Attention
The Cannes Film Festival kicked off this past week, and we are officially halfway through it, with another week to go until the prestigious Palme d’Or is handed out to the jury’s choice for festival film of the year. There were some early fireworks at the opening press conferences. First, you had the festival’s longtime general delegate, Thierry Frémaux, who is known for making statements that grab the press’ attention, claiming that last year’s Academy Award winner for Best Picture(and my favorite film of last year), One Battle After Another, was actually planned to premiere at Cannes before being delayed at the last second for post-production touch-ups. Given that Paul Thomas Anderson has never really been the biggest film festival guy and hasn’t premiered a film at one in quite some time, I don’t know how much I buy that story, but it would have been wild for Cannes to claim back-to-back Best Picture winners premiering at the festival. Frémaux also said he’s been working to restore some trust with major studios in hopes of getting them to return to Cannes to premiere their films there. The festival recently hosted the premiere of Top Gun: Maverick before it went on the awards run that it did, but studios have also seen some divisive receptions there in recent years. Elemental, for example, received a mixed response out of the festival despite eventually becoming a box office success, connecting strongly with audiences, and earning an Oscar nomination. This year, Cannes has no major studio films in competition outside of a special re-screening of The Fast And The Furious (a bizarre choice given the other re-screenings are of films like Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devils).
The other fireworks came from the jury’s opening press conference, as jury president Park Chan-wook defended the relationship between art and politics, saying, “I think it’s a strange concept to think that they’re in conflict with each other. Just because a work of art has a political statement, it should not be considered an enemy of art. At the same time, just because a film is not making a political statement, that film should not be ignored.” Meanwhile, screenwriter Paul Laverty went after Hollywood during the press conference over what he described as the blackballing of celebrities who supported efforts to stop the war in Gaza, saying, “Cannes has a wonderful poster of Thelma & Louise. Isn’t it fascinating to see some of them like Susan Sarandon, Javier Bardem, and Mark Ruffalo blacklisted because of their views in opposing the murder of women and children in Gaza?” Demi Moore also gave a very awkward and stumbling defense of AI use in film that immediately sparked discourse on X. There was also Stellan Skarsgård revealing he recently suffered a stroke and seemingly trying to joke about it in relation to walking up and down all the stairs at the festival. And, as seems expected at this point, Chloé Zhao probably delivered the warmest and least controversial remarks of the bunch, talking about how excited she was to be serving on the same jury as Park Chan-wook.
As for how the Cannes Film Festival is shaping up halfway through, it does seem like my concerns that this wasn’t quite as stacked a lineup as many were hyping it up to be are starting to come to fruition. A batch of movies I would’ve previously put on my board for potential Academy Award for Best Picture contention are already dropping like flies.
The new film from Hirokazu Kore-eda, known by some as the modern-day Yasujirō Ozu, Sheep In The Box, only received a paltry three-minute standing ovation, which is awful by Cannes standards, and was followed by some rough reviews. Celebrated director Asghar Farhadi’s newest film, Parallel Tales, completely bombed as well, earning just five minutes of polite applause and reviews that scored worse than the recent Mortal Kombat II!
Hope, Na Hong-jin’s creature-feature space invasion movie, premiered to an extremely mixed reception, with some critics noting what appeared to be unfinished CGI in the cut that was screened. James Gray’s period thriller Paper Tiger also received a very divided response.
The highlights of the festival so far seem to be two well-received international films from previously Oscar-nominated directors in Paweł Pawlikowski’s Fatherland and Ryūsuke Hamaguchi’s All Of A Sudden. Critics appear to love both films, though the early curves on movie-logging sites from festivalgoers, who tend to be a little closer to general audiences, seem notably less enthusiastic.
There’s also been a lot of love for two animated films tackling mature subject matter with In Waves, which deals with cancer, and Tangles, which focuses on Alzheimer’s. Meanwhile, the latest film from Jane Schoenbrun, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, has been met with strong reviews. The horror film aims to subvert the slasher subgenre, but Schoenbrun’s work has historically tended to connect more strongly with critics than with broader audiences, so we’ll have to see how this one ultimately plays outside the festival bubble.
To finish off the Cannes Film Festival coverage, I wanted to note that honors were given to both Peter Jackson for his work as a director, giving us The Lord Of The Rings film trilogy, the 2005 remake of King Kong, and, more recently, ambitious documentary work focused on World War I and The Beatles. A more surprising honor went to John Travolta, who was at the festival premiering his directorial debut film, Propeller One-Way Night Coach, which will be released on Apple TV+ in just a few weeks. I’ve more or less given up hope that Jackson will deliver another great narrative feature, but he absolutely deserves recognition for the body of work he’s already given us; plus it was really cool to have Elijah Wood there to give him the award. And as for Travolta, it would honestly be great to see him land another major studio hit given all the personal tragedies he’s endured later in life. Hopefully his upcoming film turns out well.
Conan O’Brien will be hosting the Academy Awards for a third consecutive time, making that “Oscars host for life” skit that ended the previous ceremony feel even more remarkable in hindsight. I’ve really enjoyed O’Brien’s work hosting the last two ceremonies and, aside from one joke he made about pretending to not like the 2024 films which I wasn’t crazy about, since I generally don’t love jokes at the expense of the movies themselves during the Oscars, I think he’s settled into the role better than most hosts I’ve seen in my lifetime. I honestly can’t blame the Academy and ABC for wanting to keep him around. Now if they could just stop scheduling the ceremony in mid-March.
Alfie Williams seem to hint that the third and final film in the ongoing 28 Years Later films is going to start pre-production sooner rather than later regardless of 'Bone Temple’’s box office. He posted a picture on social media of him learning to, and prepping, to use a crossbow and the young man has certainly been growing since what we saw of him on the silver screen. I gotta’ believe this next film will start with a time skip compared to the last two movies.
Bong Joon Ho recently spoke about his previous film Mickey 17’s box office flop, remarking, "Director’s final cut was part of my contract and everyone at the studio and at my agency tried their best to protect me.” “Of course, during post production, there was lots of discussions and a lot of opinions going back and forth, but it wasn’t ever like someone was forcing something on me or giving me pressure…And so luckily, all my films have been released as my director’s final cut, even a movie as big as Mickey 17, and all the good parts of that film and all the bad parts of that film came from me. I take full responsibility. So shit on me if you didn’t like it!” I was personally mixed-to-positive on Mickey 17 but I do know some folks who defended it and loved it. Bong making these kind of frank comments though tells me he feels he perhaps should’ve listened to the studio given how a film like that was always going to be an issue to sell to the public even after Parasite.
Rex Reed, the incredibly brash and outspoken film critic, has passed away at the age of 87. Reed was known for courting controversy, as he belonged to that breed of critics who seemed to delight in coming up with the wittiest possible ways to tear apart a movie they disliked. The guy could certainly be entertaining, I once watched old clips of him running down the Oscar nominees from the Midnight Cowboy year, along with his dismissive attitude toward films from the The Shape Of Water year, and admittedly some of his remarks made me both chuckle and gasp. Reed, though, was never really my cup of tea personally. That style of criticism, where the critic seems more interested in having fun dunking on a movie and almost takes pride in their own snobbery, has always felt off-putting to me, and I think it can be alienating to general audiences as well. Regardless, Reed was undeniably a giant in the world of film criticism and, for a time, was probably the most nationally recognizable film critic before Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel exploded into the mainstream.
I wanted to highlight a wild article that I came upon from The Ankler, written by Degen Pener, about an epidemic of rats in the Los Angeles culinary scene. No, this isn’t a Ratatouille marketing stunt guys, there’s actually rats infesting many LA restaurants that many Hollywood types go to dinner at to pen out negotiations. Click here to read the piece.
This Past Weekend At The Box Office
Arguably the biggest film from this past weekend was Focus Features and Blumhouse’s Obsession, a debut feature horror flick from Curry Barker (no relation to Clive Barker, trust me I checked). The movie was already a small hit at the fall festivals, but it’s become an even bigger hit now that it’s reached the wider public. As I write this, it has some of the best critical scores around (94% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 77 on Metacritic) alongside stellar audience scores (4.2 on Letterboxd, 8.2 on IMDb, 94% on the Popcornmeter, and a rare-for-horror A- CinemaScore). The movie also overperformed at the box office, pulling in a respectable mid-teen millions during its opening weekend for a film of its size. Sadly, I’m not on the bandwagon, as I didn’t enjoy this nearly as much as many others I know did. I didn’t get the time or space to write a formal review for it, but I’ll definitely go into more detail on the upcoming podcast episode about my dissenting thoughts.
Also releasing this past weekend in the thriller realm is Is God Is, a debut drama from director Aleshea Harris in which two sisters seek revenge on the father who burned and scarred their mother for life. This one has been getting strong word-of-mouth from critics, with a 97% Rotten Tomatoes score and an 84 on Metacritic. Audiences have responded well too, with a 3.7 on Letterboxd, a 7.4 on IMDb, an 89% on the Popcornmeter, and a B+ CinemaScore. I haven’t gotten around to this one yet as I write this, but as hyped-up new films go, I hope I enjoy it more than I did Obsession.
As for Guy Ritchie’s latest, In the Grey, as I expected, it’s flopping at the box office and has been met with negative critical reviews (46% on Rotten Tomatoes and just a 52 on Metacritic) alongside mixed audience scores (3.0 on Letterboxd, 6.7 on IMDb, 82% on the Popcornmeter, and just a B CinemaScore). Black Bear Pictures is now 0-2 on films that were supposed to help get them on the map after last year’s botched Christy campaign, a movie I enjoyed, but one that went nowhere commercially or awards-wise. I’ll catch In the Grey soon enough, but given Ritchie’s very mixed track record, I’m expecting something that is, at best, just okay.
This Next Weekend At The Box Office
We have a new event film and a new Star Wars entry in Star Wars: The Mandalorian And Grogu, which has been tracking for a decent box office performance, though on the lower-end compared to what these Star Wars movies are typically expected to do. I admittedly haven’t seen a single second of the show this movie is following up on, but I’m hoping for some adventure and fun, something that frankly Star Wars has been lacking for me ever since Disney bought the property from George Lucas. Screenings for this one have been very limited, and I do wonder if that signals a lack of confidence from Disney in the product, but we’ll soon see where this ranks within the broader Star Wars filmography.
Boots Riley’s sophomore film, I Love Boosters, about an operation of shoplifters boosting expensive clothes, comes from Neon following its premiere at South by Southwest. It was reportedly supposed to be Neon’s Plan B for awards contention in case something went horribly wrong for them at Cannes. Early word-of-mouth has mostly been along the lines of “It’s really good, but not as good as Boots’ last movie,” though the trailers make this look like it could be a fun and whacky film with something to say, much like 2018’s Sorry To Bother You. I’m hoping for a fun time with this one.
Black Bear Pictures will try to bounce back from In the Grey with the fall festival hit Tuner, a small-budget film starring Dustin Hoffman and up-and-comer Leo Woodall, in which a piano tuner learns he can use his listening skills to crack safes. This one has generated some great word-of-mouth, and I actually came very close to attending a screening for it but unfortunately couldn’t make it because I had to take care of my newborn that evening. Hopefully Black Bear can finally crack the code with this one in terms of generating good buzz for one of their films.
Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War, the film intended to wrap up the Amazon streaming series starring John Krasinski as the iconic American agent, will also be out this weekend, via their streamer. As most of you know by now I typically don’t keep up with television, but I actually have watched this series, and honestly, I feel like it’s lost steam quality-wise as it’s gone on, so I’m okay with finally wrapping this thing up.
And Netflix will have a new straight-to-streaming comedy in Ladies First, in which Sacha Baron Cohen stars as a man who wakes up in a world dominated by women. This will either be a really fun flick or a complete disaster.
What Else Is On My Mind
Anyone catch that Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano fight on Netflix? It literally lasted just sixteen seconds. There’s already been speculation that the outcome was fixed or rigged, but as veteran combat sports journalist Dave Meltzer pointed out, if that were the case, Carano probably would’ve wanted to at least sell the idea that she could put up more of a fight than that.
I don’t think there’s any conspiracy here. Carano hasn’t been in the ring in nearly two decades, while Rousey has at least remained active through professional wrestling, which still requires a level of athleticism and conditioning. On top of that, Rousey used to win fights in exactly this kind of quick fashion before she began struggling toward the end of her UFC run. This was basically a fight between two athletes well past their primes, and the one who’s spent more time doing MAGA podcasts got rocked by the one who actually seemed locked in and serious about the fight.