GENERATION-BARBIE

The great Cannes festival was bonkers: even Léa Seydoux was whacky.  And, just like Hollywood, it was all about women. Due to Barbie, nearly all the recent breaking news about casting has been about them.  And just the one guy.
Milly Alcock says her debut as Kara Zor-El in DC’s take on Tom King’s comic books, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, will open on June 26, 2026. Though she may be glimpsed first next July 11 in Superman, writer-directed by DC’s new co-boss, James Gunn. “She’s much more hardcore,” he promises, “not exactly the Supergirl we’re used to seeing.” Difficult to recall the last Angel of the Sky movie we saw  (some of us) as that was in 1984. Milly’s director, Craig Gillespie, keeps good company. He made Margot’s I, Tonya and Emma’s Cruella.
Margaret Qualley – Andie MacDowell’s daughter (and one of Tarantino’s favourites) danced twice in Cannes. Sharing The Substance body-horror with Demi Moore – plus the latest Yorgos Lanthimos trip, Kinds of Kindness, with their Pretty Things partners, Emma and Willem Dafoe.
Julia Garner, the quirky Ozark queen, is joining Marvel’s Fantastic Four. Alongside Vanessa Kirby and Pedro Pascal inhabiting The Invisible Woman and Mr Fantastic.  Must admit the previous four versions never tossed my pancakes. But then they didn’t have Julia as Shalla-Bal SIlver Surfer – turned down by Furiosa’s Anya Taylor-Joy, while Emma and Margot refused the Invisible Sue Storm.
Karla Sofia Gascón, Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz, Zoe Saldana won Best Actress at Cannes. All of ‘em!  For their work in Emilia Perez; some critics adored it, others “hated every frame.” ‘Tis a French musical in Spanish (!) about a horrible mobster turning into a woman.  They’re played by Karla. It’s her 40th screen role since 1995 – 37 of them being made as Juan Carlo Gascón, as he, too, is now a trans person.
Sydney Sweeney is  back in the ring, training “to transform my body.” Before her Barbarella, she’s filming her favourite sport. Boxing. She was into kickboxing from 12 to 19. Now she’s bioing Christy Martin, America’s most loved female boxer of the 90s. “Christy’s story isn’t a light one,” Syd told Deadline, “she fought through emotional, physical, and financial abuse. I’m passionate about the fighting world, I feel compelled to tell a story about a woman who faced so much adversity and didn’t allow it to defeat her”.
Emma Stone has agreed to a fifth outing for Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos. Called Bugonia, it has a couple of conspiracy theorists kidnapping a business woman they say is an alien out to destroy our world. One of the nutters is Jesse Plemons, Best Actor for their Cannes film – well, she got the Oscar for Pretty Things. No wonder they love the freaky film-maker.
Chiara Mastroianni has the most unusual role on the festival circuit. “Rare for an actress to portray a great actor,” someone said on French TV, missing the point of Marcello Mio. Because what is more rare is an actress deciding to live and look like…  her father! Easy enough, as Chiara is a dead ringer for Papa Marcello Mastroianni. “But you look like me, as well,” says maman, Catherine Deneuve. True. Most of the cast play themselves in a novelty satire rapidly losing the ambition it started out with. Nods to Marcello’s La Dolce Vita and 8½ are not enough. Chiara’s good. Maman’s better. But what did a lovelorn gay UK soldier have to do with it?. Apart from giving Fleabag’s Hugh Skinner a Euro break.
And the reason for all these girls, the Barbie star and producer Margot Robbie, has plenty going on. Olivia Wilde will direct her Avengelyne, an evil-bashing fallen angel created by Deadpool’s dad, Rob Liefeld. Plus an Ocean’s 11 prequel and a female Pirates of the Caribbean – Jacqueline Sparrow?  Margot also  wants to direct. Her schedules are delayed for now as Margot and hubby, producer Tom Ackerley, are infanticipating. Congratulations, guys! 

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AND JUST ONE GUY

We have, possibly, a new Harrison…  Although his late agent Ed Limato saw him more of a Richard Gere-William Hurt mix. Others saw a new Cruise, but that is likely to be Londoner Nicholas Galitzine. Anyway, The Guy says there will never be another Tom Cruise. “That’s a singular career in a singular moment.”
Old stars like Bogie, Cary and Duke never created their successors. But Cruise did that with Glen Powell. Having refused him for Rooster in Top Gun: Maverick, he took Glen under his wing, discussed his futures (“What career do you want?” “Man, yours!”) and gave him a different role, Hangman, even allowed him to work with the writers on it. And suddenly he was rom-com-ing Anyone But You with Sydney Sweeney.
Today, 21 years – and 50 gigs – after being Long Fingered Boy in Spy Kids 3 at the age of 14, Powell is second only to Timothée Chalamet (no, really!) as the new top dog in town.  Even though he’s moved his kennel from the LA fishbowl back home to Texas, he’s the go-to guy for the same studios that spurned his and Richard Linklater’s Hit Man script – to the benefit of Netflix. Consequently, Glen’s  legal drama, Monsanto, will be ‘Flixed as well.
That’s two films only.  He has far more on the stove.
He heads the Summer biggie, Twisters, for Mr Fableman’s company and produced The Blue Angels doc with JJ Abrahams, so he’ll be in JJ’s next feature. He’s into Huntingdon, a revenge thriller, in Cape Town for the top A24 outfit, then re-treads old Schwarzie and Warren Beatty roles in fresh takes on The Running Man and Heaven Can Wait. A Hulu sports show, Chad Powers, awaits in the wings, Top Gun 3 is on the runway. No wonder refused reboots of The Bourne Identity and Jurassic Park. “It’s about choosing where you’re going to make an audience happy and where you’re going to make yourself happy.”
Which is why he’s also producing a Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid series, creating a toon hero, Captain Planet , writing –a Broadway musical and, oh yeah, he’s determined to finally get his university degree. At age 33.

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OLD BLIND EYES

Fly Me to the Flower Moon… What’s happening with Martin Scorsese? He’s planning a Frank Sinatra biopic with Leonardo DiCaprio. That’s as absurd as Timmy Chalamet playing Bob Dylan (which, alas, is happening). Better suited to Kung Fu Panda, Leo has the wrong morphology, age and voice. He’d be more suitable for Marty’s old project about Dean Martin. That never ignited in 1999. Obviously. As he wanted Adam Sandler (!) or John Travolta for Dino. And hefty Wesley Snipes for little ‘n’ lithe Sammy Davis!

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A NORMAL NOBODY

Zendaya is the most popular star of the now-generation She’s he only reason to bother with Dune: Part Two and Challengers, her tennis take on Mexico’s And Your Mother Too (although I’ve yet to find a critic saying so). Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney fell instantly in love… “A born movie star. She moves with the decisive ferocity of a warrior on the court and the floating grace of a ballerina elsewhere. Holding close-ups with the effortless commandof an old-school screen siren, Zendaya registers every coolly assessing glance, every flicker of apprehension, every darkening moment of disappointment or anger.”  She’s going now so occupied with movies – Dune: Messiah, etc – that any Euphoria 3 is unlikely. Among Coppola’s many Megalopolis blunders was dropping Zendaya in favour of Nathalie Emmanuel. That, Francey, is no way to have a hit!

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ROLL ©REDITS:

Avengelyne: Rob Liefield, Julia Garner: David Giesbrecht/Netflix;  Karla Sofia Gascón, Pathé, 2024; Chiara Mastroianni: Les Films Pelleas; 2023; NCIS: CBS, 2024; Jack Nicholson: Paramount, 1973; Glen Powell: Guy Aroch/ Hollywood Reporter, 2024; Emma Stone, Lionsgate, 2023; Aaron Taylor-Johnson: Marvel/Columbia, 2022; Anya Taylor-Joy: Warner Bos, 2022; Zendaya, MGM, 2022; TC sketch: Graham Marsh, 1976. Plus enormous thanks to The Man: Daniel Bouteiller.