Cannes 2010 Predictions: Could ‘The Fighter,’ Black Swan’ & ‘Somewhere’ Premiere In France?

It’s not even March, but some sites are already dropping their Cannes 2010 predictions/educated guesses.

ScreenDaily has been the first to drop theirs which means the trades should be behind shortly. Last year when Screen Daily dropped their Cannes 2009 predictions they went about 12 for 19 making their guess work about 63% correct. When the Hollywood Reporter dropped their Cannes predix last year they went about 13 out of 21 which is about 62% accurate.

We’re not going to post all their picks, just our highlights, but they note, all these films are in post-production and should be completed by Cannes. Of course not all of them will be done in time or necessarily accepted.

We’re not buying all of them and the ones in bold we doubt will be there, the ones in red, we’re pretty sure will be be officially chosen, and our picks in green are ones that might be at Cannes, but not in official competition (and that’s if they’re there at all). Picks in purple, we guess are a maybe possibilities . Again, it’s our own guesses on top of the guesses. Cannes tends to take way less American films than people usually guess. We doubt Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan” would be there and think David O Russell’s “The Fighter” might be questionable too. Two years ago, there were only two American films in competition, Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York” and Soderbergh’s “Che.” In 2009, again there were only two American films in competition, “Taking Woodstock” and “Inglourious Basterds,” so we wouldn’t get those hopes up just yet.

Also Screen Daily doesn’t note Doug Liman’s “Fair Game” with Sean Penn and Naomi Watts which the L.A. Times just suggested could premiere there. It’s a more serious film, with a political angle that we could see the French choosing over some of these other picks (“Up” and “Drag Me To Hell” played Out of Competition, the fluff section essentially and “Precious” played in the Un Certain Regard field).

Tim Burton is obviously the jury head this year. What an odd choice.

Woody Allen – “You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger”
Darren Aronofsky – “Black Swan”
Gela Babluani – “13”
John Cameron Mitchell – “Rabbit Hole”
Sofia Coppola – “Somewhere”
Jodie Foster – “The Beaver”
Terrence Malick – “The Tree Of Life”
Oren Peli – “Area 51”
Bruce Robinson “The Rum Diary”
Robert Rodriguez – “Machete”
David O Russell – “The Fighter”
Sylvester Stallone – “The Expendables” (or not at all)
Julie Taymor “The Tempest”
Peter Weir – “The Way Back”
Stephen Frears – “Tamara Drewe”
Mike Leigh – “Another Year” (not untitled anymore)
Kevin Macdonald – “Eagle Of The Ninth”
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu – “Biutiful”
Johnnie To – “Death Of A Hostage” (Hong Kong)
Xavier Dolan – “Love, Imagined” (Canada)
Jean-Luc Godard – “Film Socialism” (France)
Abbas Kiarostami – “Certified Copy” (France)
Julian Schnabel – “Miral” (France)
Bertrand Tavernier – “The Princess Of Montpensier” (France)
Tom Tykwer – “Three” (Germany)
Patricio Guzman – “Nostalgia De La Luz” (Chile)
Pablo Larrain – “Post Mortem” (Chile)
Cristi Puiu – “Aurora” (Romania)
Bela Tarr – “The Turin Horse” (Hungary)
Susanne Bier – “The Revenge” (Denmark)

Jeffrey Wells was asking about David O. Russell’s “Nailed” at Cannes, and their is a rumor going round it might play the Cannes Marketplace (not the actual Cannes Film Festival) for prospective buyers, which we suppose we’d buy, but we’d put money down that it won’t appear at Cannes proper, let alone coming out ever.