Cannes promotional stunts, once a feature of the festival, go missing
CANNES France AP You can get nostalgic about almost anything at the Cannes Film Festival even Jerry Seinfeld on a zip line in a bumblebee costume For a multitude of years Cannes has played host not just to an endless stream of artistically ambitious movies but also to several of Hollywood s the greater part extreme promotional gambits With so numerous films packed into the -day festival and with much of the world watching there are high stakes to standing out in Cannes But in latest years the Cannes marketing stunt has turned into an endangered species Hopes that Tom Cruise might revive a dormant tradition passed with the relatively sedate premiere Wednesday of Mission Impossible Final Reckoning Would Cruise parachute into the Palais Could he ride an airplane wing to the premiere Nothing so elaborate came to pass Cruise and company walked the red carpet while serenaded by an orchestra playing the Mission Impossible theme Along the Croisette this year there s a noticeable lack of the kind of grand advertisements Hollywood has often trotted out for the festival Paramount Pictures has a Mission Impossible installation outside the Carlton Hotel but as has been true for several years Hollywood rarely still seeks to make big marketing splashes in Cannes Even though Universal Pictures upcoming Formula One action drama F might seem like a natural fit with the Monaco Grand Prix just days away F at least so far has made no pit stop in Cannes Things could change Cannes runs until May Someone might yet arrive by parasail over the Mediterranean as T J Miller did in for The Emoji Movie or do ninja kicks with a troupe of giant pandas as Jack Black did in for Kung Fu Panda But for years the circus-like quality of Cannes has been in decline That s owed partly to budgetary constraints and shifting marketing priorities for major studios For Cruise and Final Reckoning Cannes was just one stop on a worldwide tour Plus specific of those who were the majority devoted to bringing Hollywood entertainment to Cannes are no longer regulars here While head of DreamWorks Animation Jeffrey Katzenberg made sure his films left a mark in Cannes whether with models wearing Trolls wigs or Seinfeld s Bee Movie zip line Is the absence of such things anything to lament Allegedly not but they did add to the crazy-things-will-happen nature of Cannes giving the festival the feel of big tent extravaganza It could be counted as one small superficial way that movies aren t quite the carnivalesque show they once were For now though we can say we ll perpetually have when Sacha Baron Cohen for The Dictator rode a camel down the Croisette Ah the memories For more coverage of the Cannes Film Festival visit https apnews com hub cannes-film-festival Source
