“Suspiria”
Luca Guadagnino’s already stormed the festival circuit once this year with “Call Me By Your Name,” winning raves at Sundance and Berlin, and he may well be back very shortly with a very different movie: his remake of Dario Argento’s horror classic “Suspiria.” Dakota Johnson heads a cast also including Tilda Swinton, Chloe Grace Moretz and original star Jessica Harper, and, if nothing else, it should be an audio-visual pleasure: Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s DP Sayombhu Mukdeeprom is lensing, and Thom Yorke is scoring. Guadagnino has a long history with Venice, and this feels like a good bet to premiere there. Update: We’ve been informed that “Suspiria” won’t be ready until 2018.
“Thelma”
One of the more surprising absences from Cannes was the latest from Playlist fave Joachim Trier (“Reprise,” “Louder Than Bombs”), a supernatural thriller about a woman who discovers she has strange powers when she falls in love. It opens in its native Norway in mid-September: we reckon a Venice bow is the most likely option, but TIFF would be an obvious home as well. With the genre-y subject matter, expect it at Fantastic Fest too.
“Three Billboards Outside Of Ebbing, Missouri”
We’ve been excited for Martin McDonagh’s third feature for a long time. It stars Frances McDormand as a grieving mother who takes some unusual steps to force the local police chief (Woody Harrelson) to investigate her daughter’s murder properly. With a November release approaching, it shouldn’t be long before we get to see it. We wouldn’t be shocked to see Fox Searchlight follow the Venice/TIFF route that worked so well for “Birdman” and “Jackie,” though their slate is a busy one this year, so just TIFF is an option too.
“Under The Silver Lake”
Arthouse horror “It Follows” played Cannes Critics’ Week, and instantly made sophomore director David Robert Mitchell into hot property. And his follow-up, an ambitious modern-day LA noir about the kidnapping of a billionaire’s daughter certainly sounds like the kind of thing any of the fall festivals would jump at, especially with a red-carpet-friendly cast including Andrew Garfield, Riley Keough, Topher Grace and Zosia Mamet. Producers A24 have good relations with all the fests, so it may come down to where it can make the biggest noise, whether that’s Venice, Telluride (like “Moonlight“) or even a starry gala slot at NYFF.
“Wendy”
It’s been 5 years since “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” so forgive us if we’re jumping the gun here, but, with reports that director Benh Zeitlin was finally filming his follow-up back in March, there’s a very slim chance it could be ready for the fall. This project, which exists in a kind of cone of silence, but which Zeitlin described as “about a young girl who gets kidnapped onto a hidden ecosystem where a tribal war is raging over a form of pollen that breaks the relationship between aging and time,” sounds like a crazy ambitious mash-up of noted disasters “Dune” and “The Happening” but with Zeitlin behind it, we’re very, very curious.
“Where Hands Touch”
Amma Asante’s last film, “A United Kingdom,” didn’t quite become a sleeper hit in the way that her previous, “Belle,” did, but it was still another solid historical drama framing world events from an interesting new perspective. Just a year later, Asante’s back with “Where Hands Touch,” telling a very unusual love story in showing a (presumably ill-fated) romance between a mixed-race German teenager and a young SS officer in Nazi Germany. Amandla Stenberg, George MacKay, Christopher Eccleston and Abbie Cornish headline, and we’re pretty sure this’ll be headed to TIFF, where “Belle” and “A United Kingdom” both premiered.
“Wildlife”
Barely a fall festival season goes by without a big-name actor making his directorial debut and we’re confident, given his long list of collaborators and intrinsic intelligence, that Paul Dano’s will go down better than, say, Ewan McGregor’s “American Pastoral” last year. This adaptation of Richard Ford’s novel about a disintegration of a marriage through a child’s eyes was co-written with Dano’s partner Zoe Kazan, and toplines his “Okja” co-star Jake Gyllenhaal (hopefully in more… restrained form) and Carey Mulligan. TIFF seems the most likely venue for a premiere.
“Wonder Wheel”
For the last decade or so, Woody Allen’s put movies out in the summer more or less clockwork, and when there’s been a festival premiere, it’s tended to be at Cannes. But with his Amazon series last year throwing the schedule out of whack a bit, he’s headed to the fall for the first time since “Cassandra’s Dream” with his latest, a drama starring Kate Winslet and Justin Timberlake set at a Coney Island amusement park in the 1950s. With a December date already set by Amazon, this could return the filmmaker to Venice (where “Cassandra’s Dream” and “Anything Else” premiered), or maybe a homecoming at NYFF.
“Woodshock”
Instant powerhouse A24 has already had an exceptional 2017, but they still have a few tricks up their sleeve, including the debut film from fashion label Rodarte‘s founders, Kate and Laura Mulleavy. A dreamlike evocation of a woman’s drug-induced, decaying mental state (the trailer is pretty stunning), it stars Kirsten Dunst, on a roll after her MVP turn in “The Beguiled,” as well as Playlist favorite Pilou Asbaek, rising star Joe Cole and “Boyhood‘s” Lorelei Linklater. Its sensibility looks suited to Venice, though it could also find a home at TIFF, in the way that the similarly evocative and mood-driven “The Duke of Burgundy” did.
“Zama”
The new film from Argentinian director Lucrecia Martel is produced by Pedro Almodovar and, hence, could not play in Cannes this year, where Almdovar was heading the jury, despite her last two exceptional features, “The Headless Woman” and “The Holy Girl” debuting there. Based on a 1956 novel, ‘Zama’ is the 18th century-set story of Don Diego de Zama, a Spanish officer in Asunción, who awaits his transfer to Buenos Aires, though that dry logline is less exciting that the gorgeous trailer, and the fact that we’ve been waiting 9 long years for another film from Martel. A Venice bow is super-likely.
What else, what else, what else? With literally dozens of slots at the various festivals, and post-production being a tricky beast, there’s plenty of other movies that could end up bowing as well or instead of some of the above, or some notable movies that probably won’t be done in time. Among the latter: Carlos Reygadas’ “Where Life Is Born,” which wrapped in February but will likely be held for Cannes 2018 (all the director’s other movies have premiered on the Croisette), Jean-Luc Godard’s “Image et Parole” which will likely also be Cannes-bound, and Terrence Malick’s “Radegund,” which will be done sometime between now and the heat death of the universe.
We’d also be surprised to see Steven Spielberg’s “The Post” (or possibly “The Papers”), which is still shooting and would struggle to be ready for any major fests, as well as Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Favorite,” which has wrapped but will likely be holding off until after “The Killing Of A Sacred Deer” has played the various fests. Tom Cruise vehicle “American Made” has the opposite problem — it starts opening internationally from the end of August, making a festival bow unlikely despite its late-Sept date in the U.S.
“The Tribe” helmer Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi’s “Luxembourg” is another Cannes 2018 bet, and Jennifer Kent’s “The Nightingale,” Ari Folman’s “Anne Frank,” the troubled “Mektoub Is Mektoub” from “Blue Is The Warmest Color” helmer Abdellatif Kechiche, Jennifer Lawrence vehicle “Red Sparrow,” Xavier Dolan’s “The Death & Life Of John F. Donovan,” Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma,” Alex Garland’s “Annihilation,” Warwick Thornton’s “Sweet Country” and Brady Corbet’s “Vox Lux” (which doesn’t seem to have shot yet) are all almost certainly 2018 movies. Jason Reitman’s “Tully” hits next April, but there’s an outside chance it could bow at TIFF, given his long history there — Wes Anderson’s “Isle Of Dogs” is released the same time, but don’t expect that before Berlin 2018, while we’ve heard David Lowery’s “The Old Man & The Gun” is waiting for Sundance.
Stuff that could well pop up include Jason Clarke as Ted Kennedy in “Chappaquiddick,” Hirokazu Koreeda’s courtroom thriller “The Third Murder,” Liam Neeson as Deep Throat in “Mark Felt,” Paul Schrader’s “First Reformed,” S. Craig Zahler’s “Bone Tomahawk” follow-up “Brawl In Cell Block 99” with Vince Vaughn, Colin Firth in James Marsh’s yachting drama “The Mercy,” Miles Teller in PTSD drama “Thank You For Your Service,” Jody Hill and Danny McBride reteaming for “The Legacy Of A Whitetail Deer Hunter” with Josh Brolin, Sam Rockwell in “Blue Iguana,” Emma Thompson in “The Children Act,” Jacob Tremblay in make-up in “Wonder,” David Wain’s Netflix National Lampoon biopic “A Futile And Stupid Gesture,” Jose Padilha’s thriller “Entebbe,” Stephen King adaptation “It,” Judi Dench in “Victoria & Abdul” and Domhnall Gleeson saying “Goodbye Christopher Robin.”
And there’s more! Joseph Kosinski’s firefighter drama “Granite Mountain Hotshots” with Jeff Bridges, Wim Wenders’ “Submergence” with James McAvoy and Alicia Vikander, Jane Fonda and Robert Redford reteaming for Netflix movie “Our Souls At Night,” Idris Elba and Kate Winslet on “The Mountain Between Us,” Chadwick Boseman as “Marshall,” Andrew Garfield in “Breathe” (already confirmed to open the LFF as a European premiere, meaning it’ll certainly be at Telluride or TIFF), Quentin Dupiex’s “Au Poste,” and Jon Hamm in Brad Anderson/Tony Gilroy thriller “High Wire Act.”
Stuff that’s mostly commercial, and will likely skip the festival route entirely (though could yet crop up) includes Netflix’s “Bright,” “Paddington 2,” the new “Cloverfield” movie, “Murder On The Orient Express,” and “The Greatest Showman.” And other TV shows that could have some kind of festival presence include TNT’s period serial killer drama “The Alienist,” AMC’s Arctic horror “The Terror” and Carey Mulligan-starring David Hare BBC miniseries “Collateral.” Anything else? Make your predictions in the comments.