Cannes Told Us Everything You Need to Know About the State of Movies in 2022

From "Top Gun" to "Triangle of Sadness" and new leadership at Warner Bros. Discovery, this year's Cannes was a window into the state of the industry on every level.

By Eric Kohn, Anne Thompson

June 3, 2022 11:30 am

This year’s Cannes Film Festival is over, but the 75th edition of the festival captures many circumstances likely to linger in the months ahead. Cannes provided a lively launchpad for “Top Gun: Maverick” ahead of its healthy box office performance, which says a lot about the willingness for a wide array of audiences to go back to theaters. Meanwhile, the success of Palme d’Or winner “Triangle of Sadness,” which sold to Neon, shows that distributors are betting big on arthouse audiences as the year continues.

Larger forces at work in Hollywood made appearances at Cannes as well, including a cameo by new Warner Bros. Discovery head David Zaslav at the premiere of “Elvis,” mere days before he switched up the leadership at the company’s film division by replacing Toby Emmerich with Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy.

In this week’s episode of Screen Talk, Eric Kohn and Anne Thompson discuss their experiences witnessing these events up close at Cannes, and debate other highlights from the lineup. They also recommend some upcoming new releases, and discuss the unfortunate circumstances of the Depp/Heard trial that took place while they were at the festival.

Watch the full episode above or listen to it below.

Screen Talk is produced by Azwan Badruzaman and available on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and Spotify, and hosted by Megaphone. Browse previous installments here, subscribe here, and be sure to let us know if you’d like to hear the hosts address specific issues in upcoming editions of Screen Talk.