“Downsizing”
With a Dec 22nd release date set, an Oscar-winning writer and Oscar-nominated director in fest-beloved Alexander Payne (“About Schmidt” and “Nebraska” were Cannes players, while “The Descendants” and “Sideways” went to TIFF) plus one of the year’s starriest casts ( Matt Damon, Kristen Wiig, Christoph Waltz, Alec Baldwin, Jason Sudeikis), a fall premiere for “Downsizing” is a lock. Combining Payne’s regular thematic obsessions with fun-sounding sci-fi, it concerns a married couple agreeing to shrink themselves when life gets out of hand, only for the wife to back out. “Honey I Shrunk The Overwhelmed, Self-Deluding Manchild,” anyone?
“Euphoria”
One Oscar, several blockbusters and global fame later, Alicia Vikander reunites with Swedish helmer Lisa Langseth, the filmmaker who essentially discovered her with 2009’s “Pure,” for this English drama that stars Vikander and Eva Green as two sisters on a road trip. Charlotte Rampling and Charles Dance also feature in a promising cast, and with an October release in Sweden, this’ll be at one big fall fest: the last Vikander/Langseth joint, “Hotell,” bowed at TIFF in 2013, but this could be at Venice as well.
“Eva”
Afetr a stellar 2016 which saw her gain an Oscar nomination for “Elle,” Isabelle Huppert is essentially a one-woman festival magnet and she has several candidates in the can. Maybe most likely for a fall fest premiere is “Eva,” as it comes from Benoit Jacquot, who has form with both Venice and TIFF (“Never Ever” and “3 Hearts,” respectively). The storyline follows a playwright (Gaspard Ulliel) encountering a mysterious woman (Huppert) when they’re stranded in a chalet during a blizzard. Sounds like it gives her the chance to act up… a storm (sorrynotsorry). There is also an outsider’s chance she’ll be seen in Serge Bozon‘s “Madame Hyde” or Anne Fontaine‘s “Marvin” before the year is out, though.
“First They Killed My Father”
If it all pans out we may get to discover who got to “keep” George Clooney in the Angelina Jolie/Brad Pitt breakup, as Clooney is likely to be in Venice with “Suburbicon” and Jolie with her directorial follow-up to “By The Sea.” That film was divisive, to say the least, but perhaps the most honest and self-reflexive film Jolie’s made to date. ‘Father’ goes back to the war-time drama of her debut “Land of Blood and Honey” though we’re rooting for her story of a Cambodian woman surviving the Khmer Rouge to be quite a bit better. She has assembled quite a team with Anthony Dod Mantle as DP, Marco Beltrami scoring and Netflix footing the bill.
“Godless”
One of the more auteur-friendly Netflix projects set to bow in the fall is Scott Frank’s Western miniseries “Godless.” A long-time passion project for the writer-director (David Fincher and Steven Soderbergh both circled the project when it was still a movie — Soderbergh exec produces), it sees an outlaw (Jack O’Connell) hiding out from his murderous former partner (Jeff Daniels) in a town entirely made up of women, with Michelle Dockery, Scoot McNairy, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Merritt Wever and Sam Waterston also in the fine cast. It would seem to be a prime case for TV/festival crossover — TIFF feels like a good bet, but Venice or AFI might make sense too.
“Hold The Dark”
To say that Jeremy Saulnier delivered an amazing one-two punch with “Blue Ruin” and “Green Room” probably understates the gruesomeness of the violence in his movies — it’s probably more of a one-two shotgun blast and/or arm severing. But we’ve been champing at the bit to see what he’d do next, and that next thing is “Hold The Dark,” a thriller penned by frequent collaborator Macon Blair about an investigation into the death of a child which may or may not have been carried out by wolves. Jeffrey Wright, Alexander Skarsgard, Riley Keough and James Badge Dale lead a great cast, and while Saulnier’s previous movies screened at Cannes, Netflix back this one, which makes a Cannes 2018 bow less likely. It might be held until Sundance, but we wouldn’t be shocked to see it at TIFF or even Venice first.
“Hostiles”
Having had some modest success with meat-and-potatoes crime pictures “Out Of The Furnace” and “Black Mass,” Scott Cooper turns his hand to another dad-favorite genre, the Western, for this film about an army captain who agrees to escort a dying Cheyenne chief and his family back to their tribal lands. Cooper’s reuniting with his ‘Furnace’ star Christian Bale in the lead role, with Ben Foster, Rosamund Pike, Jesse Plemons, Wes Studi, Adam Beach, Q’orianka Kilcher and Timothee Chalamet in support — could this be the movie that finally sees Cooper worthy of the casts he attracts? An AFI Fest debut, like “Out Of The Furnace,” might be the best bet as to when we find out.
“Journeyman”
It’s not like there’s been a dearth of boxing dramas recently, but the Film4-backed “Journeyman” comes from actor Paddy Considine, whose debut directing feature “Tyrannosaur” is basically genius, so we’re happy to climb back into the ring. This time Considine will also star, as a boxer who sustains a serious head injury during a bout. “Tyrannosaur” was a Sundance hit, gaining him a Directing award and a Special Jury Prize, but, if this is ready, we should see it sooner, with perhaps TIFF the most natural fit prior to a probable London Film Festival showcase.
“Kings”
Deniz Gamze Ergüven made a huge splash with her debut “Mustang,” which premiered in Directors’ Fortnight and went on to be nominated for the Foreign Language Oscar. This more expansive second feature, starring Halle Berry and Daniel Craig, only wrapped in February and so wasn’t ready for Cannes this year, but unless she holds it for next Cannes, we imagine we’ll see it in 2017. Ergüven might ordinarily feel like a better fit for Venice, but this hot-button story of an LA foster family whose lives are shattered in the wake of the Rodney King trial verdict in 1992 may ride its North American appeal to a festival there instead.
“Lady Bird”
Having shared directing duties with Joe Swanberg on 2008’s “Nights and Weekend,” and having written two films with Noah Baumbach in which she also starred (“Frances Ha” and “Mistress America“), the great Greta Gerwig makes her solo writing-directing debut with “Lady Bird.” Starring Oscar-nominee Saoirse Ronan and “Manchester By The Sea“-breakout Lucas Hedges, with Tracy Letts, Laurie Metcalf and “Call Me by Your Name“-sensation Timothee Chalamet rounding out a deep supporting bench, it’s a coming-of-age comedy-drama about a high school senior spending a year in California, and seems a likely bet for TIFF, which loves Gerwig almost as much as we do.