Mixed results
French films performed reasonably well at this year’s Cannes Market with a few very strong titles like Rivers of Purple 2 and Blueberry attracting numerous foreign buyers, while smaller films failed to drum up much interest.
The best deals were those for big-budget action titles: with Japan alone spending around $3.5m. The top films were Rivers of Purple 2: The Angel of the Apocalypse by Olivier Dahan and starring Jean Reno and Benoît Magimel, that knocked up sales for a total of Euros17m compared to Euros13m by its predecessor. Producer Alain Goldman (Légende Entreprises) and his international distributors, EuropaCorp for Asia and StudioCanal in the rest of the world were laughing all the way to the bank.
Another French success story was Jan Kounen’s Bluebuerry, starring Vincent Cassel, which was sold by UGC International. Europa Corp. also struck strong pre-sales deals for its big budget productions like Danny the Dog by Louis Leterrier, Fanfan la Tulipe [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Haute Tension and Michel Vaillant.
However this year’s revelation was animated feature, Les Triplettes de Belleville [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Sylvain Chomet: sold by Celluloid Dreams to 33 territories.
Results like these cannot however conceal a significant drop in foreign interest for small-budget French titles, although there were a few welcome surprises like Il est più facile pour un chameau… [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, bought by Gémini Films for distribution in 8 countries.
(Translated from French)
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