Cannes Skimps on Movie Marketing Stunts: Hollywood Wonders Where the Hype Went?

The French Riviera is notorious for abundance, but this year’s Cannes Film Festival seems trés lean when it comes to generating excitement over big movies.

The Boulevard de la Croisette is usually drenched in pricey activations around summer blockbusters, prestige indies and everything in between — many playing outside the festival’s competition and using the foot traffic of stars, industry insiders, fans and journalists to make an impression. Economic uncertainty across global sectors, however, may be the black fly in the Sancerre.

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“Where is the hype?” one top film executive at a streaming company asked Variety in passing at the beachside Majestic Hotel. So far, only “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning” has ponied up to let the city (and the world) know it’s premiering in Cannes (and, more important, opening wide on May 21).

The hype scale is smaller for the last chapter of Tom Cruise’s spy franchise, however. An installation of asymmetrical, 20-foot screens are playing the movie’s trailer in front of the Carlton Hotel. It’s a far cry from 2022, when Paramount shelled out for a two-story recreation of an Air Force pilot helmet that showed scenes from that Cruise adventure in its giant visor. On balance, the studio did arrange an orchestra to play the “Mission: Impossible” theme music live at the film’s gala premiere this year, a feat that’s only been pulled off a handful of times (including a live performance from U2 at the top of the Palais steps in 2007).

Movie marketers have long used Cannes as an opportunity to associate their projects with the glamour of the annual event — even if their stunts are loud and elaborate (occasionally bordering on tacky).

Memorable moments include Will Smith, Angelina Jolie and Jack Black riding into the Cannes harbor on a giant inflatable shark in 2004 to promote their animated “Shark Tale.” And Jerry Seinfeld’s infamous zip-lining off the Carlton Hotel in a giant bee costume in 2007 for “Bee Movie.” Or the tasteful display of Blake Lively’s “The Shallows,” a 2016 shark survival thriller, which floated shark fins a la “Jaws” around the actor during a photo call.

But no such gimmicks have been found this time around. An international film executive noted that a long dock jutting out from the coast by the Hotel Martinez is sadly vacant this year — one normally taken over with prints, advertising and props from films like Brad Pitt’s “Bullet Train” and DreamWorks’ “Trolls” in the past. Not one film studio has opened its coffers to buy out the exclusive Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in nearby Antibes, home of many Gatsby-style parties over the years.

Some think the austerity is due to economic volatility around the world, as U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs wreak havoc on markets (which also concerns the film business, where Trump has proposed a 100% levy on film tax incentives from foreign governments). Others Variety spoke with suggested that marketing dollars are being funneled into more democratized audience platforms like TikTok (that app landed Cruise in person for a fireside chat in Cannes on Tuesday).

A film sales agent sees the slim pickings as a missed opportunity, noting that the Monte Carlo Grand Prix is held a stone’s throw from the festival. Cannes is the perfect place to remind people that Apple and Warner Bros. have a massive action film coming set around the world of Formula One in June.

“Why isn’t Brad Pitt’s face on a cocktail napkin at my hotel?” they asked.

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