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Bruce Lee in a 1973 file photo. PHOTO: AP

For 12 days this month the world movie business decamps to Cannes, turning the Cote d'Azur town and its famous beachfront into the backdrop for what will be the 60th birthday of the world's most prestigious film festival.

To help mark the anniversary, Cannes has unveiled a program that in a sense pays tribute to some of the leading figures from the festival's recent past including Hong Kong's Wong Kar-wai (王家衛), Serb-based Emir Kusturica as well as Americans Quentin Tarantino, Michael Moore and the Coen brothers.

"For the anniversary we chose to mix heritage with modernity, well-known names and new blood," president festival Giles Jacob said unveiling the list of movies to be shown in Cannes.

Indeed, this year's festival will also help mark the resurgence of moviemaking in different parts of the world, including Romania, Japan, Israel, Hungary and South Korea.

But instead of staging a lavish party, Cannes is planning to celebrate this year's anniversary with a mini festival of 33 short films about going to the cinema by leading directors such as Roman Polanski, Ken Loach, Lars von Trier, Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu and Tsai Ming-liang (蔡明亮).

Of the 1,600 movies considered for this year's festival, 64 feature films are to be screened across the festival's main sections. Of these, 22 have been selected to compete for the festival's prestigious Palme d'Or or Golden Palm.

With only a week to go before opening night for this year's festival the competition for top honors in Cannes still appears somewhat open.

Indeed, the nine-member jury headed by British director Stephen Frears will find themselves attempting to select a winner from a batch of movies which to a large extent depict life's harder edge.

Wong's My Blueberry Nights, which is the Hong Kong director's first jab at making an English-language film has been given the honor of opening the festival next Wednesday.

Spider-Man 3 is on course to join the elite billion-US dollar club of movies after re-writing the record books with a spectacular worldwide opening, according to figures released this week.

The blockbuster scored record opening weekends in nearly 30 countries following its release last week, and re-couped the estimated US$258 million it cost to make within the space of a few days.

A statement from Sony Pictures Entertainment on Monday said final worldwide earnings were a staggering US$382 million, the highest opening in motion picture history.

Analysts said they expected the film to become only the fourth in history to generate takings in excess of one billion dollars, after Titanic, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

"Spider-Man 3 has just flown past what was expected of it," said Gitesh Pandya, an analyst with boxofficeguru.com. "It has crushed the opposition."

Sony said its film topped the box-office in 107 territories around the world and set a new record for the biggest opening weekend of all time in 29 countries, including the US, Canada, Japan, South Korea and China.

A respected Hong Kong director said this week he is negotiating with the family of Bruce Lee (李小龍) for approval to shoot a movie about the late action star.

Stanley Kwan (關錦鵬) said his movie will explore how Lee was influenced by the absence of his father, and how he brought up his own son, Brandon Lee (李國豪). It will also look at how Bruce Lee turned into a master of martial arts, he said.

Both Bruce and Brandon Lee died when they were relatively young.

Bruce Lee died in 1973 at age 32 from swelling of the brain.

Brandon, who also became an actor, was killed on the set of the film The Crow in 1993 when a prop gun that supposedly held blank bullets discharged a live round. 
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