Renowned filmmaker Ruben Östlund is working on his latest project and has booked two acclaimed actors for his upcoming feature. Kirsten Dunst and Daniel Brühl are the latest to join the Swedish filmmaker’s “The Entertainment System Is Down.” Östlund is best known for his black comedic and satirical films like “Force Majeure” (2014), “The Square” (2017) and “Triangle of Sadness” (2022). Ruben Östlund’s latest project, “The Entertainment System Is Down,” will also revolve around the same genre as the feature takes place on a long flight in which the onboard entertainment system fails, leaving the passengers to deal with their own boredom — to darkly comedic results.
Apart from Dunst and Brühl, Keanu Reeves is also attached to the project.
What can be expected from Ruben Östlund’s latest Cannes Project?
Before dwelling on what’s in the film, let’s dive into the theory of the visionary auteur that led to the making of this film. While preparing the movie, Ruben Östlund was inspired by a social psychological study at Virginia University called ‘The Challenge Of The Disengaged Mind.’ The experiment found that participants did not enjoy spending 6 to 15 minutes in a room by themselves with nothing to do but think. To take the experiment one step further, the researchers added a twist: With the touch of a button, the test subjects could, if desired, give themselves a harmless but very painful electric shock. As a result, a quarter of all women and two-thirds of all men chose to press the button. One man even found being alone with his thoughts so unbearable that, during the 15 minutes, he gave himself 190 electric shocks.
If you remember Östlund’s 2022 film “Triangle of Sadness,” you must be aware of the famous lengthy vomiting scene. While that scene tested audiences’ ability to handle a gross-out scenario, the filmmaker is now up with another challenge for the viewers as he has said that “The Entertainment System” will challenge audiences’ ability to sit with their own thoughts with a scene that will show a child wait five minutes (in real-time) until an iPad becomes available to play with. However, it’s unclear if this scene will indeed make it into the film.
Östlund has bought a retired Boeing 747 for the project and is pitching the project at Cannes. Moreover, the filmmaker has stated he aspires for “The Entertainment System” to cause the biggest walkout in Cannes history when it inevitably plays at the fest.
While the complete list of cast members is yet to be announced, the involvement of Reeves, Dunst, and Brühl is enough to hype the anticipation of the film. The project is scheduled to shoot in early 2025. Erik Hemmendorff will produce via Plattform Produktion. Philippe Bober of the Coproduction Office will also produce, with the company handling worldwide sales.
