It isn't coincidental that so many movie announcements are made at film festivals, such as Cannes
As far as I know, the major U.S. studios almost never
announce new films at film festivals. They debut them, they lobby for awards, the publicize them. On rare ocassion they may show footage from a work-in-progress to get a buzz going. But they
don't announce future projects there. Independents desparate to raise money to make a film will announce them at film festivals - because that's the place to meet the money men, not because the press is there. Similarly producers will try to make distribution deals at places like Cannes or Sundance.
And U.S. films are made for, live and die by and are judged by
domestic box office. International sales are important, of course, but what really counts is how a film plays on the home field. Since most Americans don't really care about film festivals in general or follow what little news comes out of them, and care even less about overseas film festivals, the U.S. studios would get essentially
no benefit with their target audience by announcing a film a Cannes - where announcements of future productions are going to be swamped by news about the films actually playing at the festival anyway. And they wouldn't gain anything they really needed in terms of the European audience, since they already have international distirbution deals in place.
Can you think of
one film from a major U.S. studio like Warner Bros., Fox, Sony, Disney or Paramount whose pending production was
announced at Cannes, or Sundance or Toronto? I sure can't. I don't think it has ever happened.
Film festivals exist mostly for indies and small producers. The majors get a little publicity out of them, and every so often they'll find an indy gem that is worth picking up in a distribution deal, but the basic idea is to provide those
outside the system with a chance to court sources of funding, distribution and future work, not a place for the majors to court the press or anybody else. They don't need festivals for that.
Regards,
Joe
