First Predictions: Adapted & Original Screenplays

by Nathaniel R

Four inspirations for 2026 movies: Mrs Dalloway becomes CLARRISA, The Unfaithful Wife becomes MINOTAUR, Rocky (1976) gets a making of bio with I PLAY ROCKY, and of course the bestseller turned blockbuster PROJECT HAIL MARY

As someone who never used to have writers block but who has it frequently now, I have a newly reinvigorated respect for fellow writers who perservere. That said, the screenwriters life can't be easy given the amount of script doctoring, star and director and studio "notes", multiple drafts, and anything else that can change an original concept or even an adapted one -- and what is the difference really in some cases? Cheers to anyone who sees anything they wrote up on screen, even if it's only partially their vision in the end. Let's look at some Oscar possibilities after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Cannes 'Jury of One' and Predictions

by Elisa Giudici

LA BOLA NEGRA

There’s a strange atmosphere lingering over Cannes this year: not scandal, not outrage, not even division exactly. More like collective hesitation. A sense that everyone liked several films, respected many more, but truly loved very few. The consensus around the Croisette is unusually blunt: Competition was quite weak, only occasionally excellent, and rarely exhilarating. In a year where Hollywood increasingly seems willing to bypass festivals altogether for its prestige launches (Sinners, Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another all cultivated awards ambitions without Cannes or Venice), the festival perhaps needed a genuine cinematic event more than usual. Instead, 2026 mostly offered strong craftsmanship without many discoveries. The real surprises often came outside Competition.

That doesn’t mean the lineup failed. The major auteurs mostly delivered exactly what one expects from them: polished, controlled, intelligent work. Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord, Pawel Pawlikowski’s Fatherland, and Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Minotaur are all films of remarkable rigor and seriousness...

Click to read more ...