Daniel Brühl’s latest film is headed stateside…
In a competitive situation at the Cannes market, A24 has landed an eight-figure deal to acquire U.S. rights to one of the biggest art house crossover projects in town in The Entertainment System is Down, the next film from two-time Palme d’Or winner Ruben Östlund and starring the 45-year-old Spanish-German actor.
The deal was struck between A24 and Paris-based Co-Production Office, which has been making the rounds with the project at the Cannes market. The film recently added Nicholas Braun and Samantha Morton to a starry cast that already includes Keanu Reeves, Kirsten Dunst and Brühl.
The Entertainment System is Down is Östlund’s follow-up to Triangle of Sadness, which won the Palme d’Or in 2022. Like its predecessor a social satire, the new film is set on a long-haul flight where the entertainment systems fail, and an eclectic group of international passengers are forced to face the horror of being bored.
Östlund and his producer, Erik Hemmendorff, purchased a real-life Boeing 747 for the film. He told the press during a Cannes event that he will mount the production over 70 days on a studio lot.
“We bought the plane and it was quite early in the process of the film. So suddenly it was like, ‘Oh, we have to make this film,” Östlund said at the presser, which Dunst and Brühl attended.
Dunst and Brühl will play a doomed married couple.
Östlund said this week he expected to be back at Cannes in 2026 when he’ll debut The Entertainment System Is Down. The project will mark Östlund’s second English-language film and seventh feature after The Guitar Mongoloid (2004), Involuntary (2008), Play (2011), Force Majeure (2014), his first Palme winner The Square (2017) and Triangle of Sadness (2022).
