Jacob Elordi & Lily-Rose Depp To Star In Cormac McCarthy Adaptation ‘Outer Dark' — Red Hot Project Bubbling At The Cannes Market
EXCLUSIVE: Here's a very cool project bubbling at this year's Cannes market.
We can reveal that Jacob Elordi and Lily-Rose Depp, two of the industry's buzziest young names, are set to star in Outer Dark, a film based on iconic author Cormac McCarthy's (No Country For Old Men) dark 1968 novel.
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The 'dark fairytale', which is being lined up to shoot in 2026, will mark the English-language debut of Oscar-winning Son Of Saul filmmaker Laszlo Nemes.
Outer Dark is set in Appalachia during the Great Depression and tells of a young woman who bears her brother's baby. The brother leaves the nameless infant in the woods to die, but tells his sister that the newborn died of natural causes and had to be buried. The sister discovers this lie and sets out to find the baby for herself. But as both brother and sister separately move through the countryside, three terrifying strangers are on their tails, wreaking death and destruction wherever they appear.
Nemes wrote the screenplay with Clara Royer, while Mike Goodridge of London-based Good Chaos is producing alongside Nemes; executive producers are Ilene Feldman, Ori Eisen of Original Films and Nicolas Gonda. Good Chaos and Nemes have the book-to-screen rights.
Goodridge, the Triangle Of Sadness co-producer who has Left-Handed Girl playing at this year's festival, is among the team on the ground in Cannes in early talks with potential partners for the project. It's not formally on sale here but there are likely to be plenty of suitors to finance or get behind it.
We understand the actors really sparked to the material and both are coming off big successes. It's fitting stuff for both: Depp is coming off Oscar-nominated box office hit Nosferatu, another dark fairytale, while Euphoria and Priscilla star Elordi is coming off excellent notices for The Narrow Road To The Deep North and will next be seen as the creature in Guillermo Del Toro's Frankenstein, as Heathcliff in Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights and in Ridley Scott's Dog Stars, which is in production.
Laszlo Nemes said: 'Since reading Outer Dark the first time, it has been my dream to make it into a film, and to find the appropriate cinematic language that would do justice to Cormac McCarthy's evocative and cosmological work. Joined by two magnetic actors, I now feel it's possible. The extraordinary source material is a profound inspiration to build a unique world that vibrates with life and death at the same time. An exciting road-movie, a terrible and beautiful journey into the labyrinth of the human soul – this is the ambition I have for Outer Dark.'
Nemes recently completed his third film Orphan (also produced by Goodridge) which is scheduled to premiere at a festival later this year before its October 23 release in Hungary. He will next shoot Moulin, a French-language feature about WWII resistance fighter Jean Moulin which is being sold at the Cannes market by 193. Gilles Lellouche and Lars Eidinger are starring for producer Alain Goldman.
Alongside Orphan, Goodridge is also in post-production on Edward Berger's next film, The Ballad Of A Small Player, starring Colin Farrell and Tilda Swinton.
Cormac McCarthy's lauded novels adapted for the screen include Oscar winner No Country For Old Men and Viggo Mortensen starrer The Road.
Elordi is repped by Gersh and Goodman, Genow. Depp is repped by CAA, Markham, Froggatt & Irwin, Agence Adequat, and Lichter, Grossman. Nemes is represented by CAA and Ilene Feldman Management.
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Forbes
37 minutes ago
- Forbes
Does Elon Musk's Borrowing Show A Super Low Tesla Stock Valuation?
CANNES, FRANCE - JUNE 19: Elon Musk attends 'Exploring the New Frontiers of Innovation: Mark Read in ... More Conversation with Elon Musk' session during the Cannes Lions International Festival Of Creativity 2024 - Day Three on June 19, 2024 in Cannes, France. (Photo by) A practice of Elon Musk and Tesla's board raises questions about the company's governance and the possible low valuation that private capital markets are putting on its shares. At the heart of the issue is how the company's CEO borrows money and whether he pledged an astoundingly large percentage of his shares — close to 7% of all outstanding stock — as collateral for a sum under 4% of the market value. The question is also not just about Tesla, but all public companies where executives and directors might pledge stock for borrowing in ways that could affect the market caps of the corporations. Because this has been a potential and actual problem across companies over time. Chief executive officers often borrow money against their shares as a tax-avoidance measure. Borrowing doesn't typically trigger income recognition requirements, so it is a mechanism for gaining liquidity without causing a taxable event. The interest paid on the loan is likely far less than the capital gains tax that would otherwise be required. Boards accept the approach for two major reasons. Generally, stock is considered to be a way to 'align the interests, ' as typically put, of executives and shareholders. But executives don't want to sit on shares without access to their value. Stock as collateral offers a balance. The other reason is to avoid a company's leader dumping shares. Such a situation could affect the stock's price, both because of supply and demand, and also from the psychological impact of an assumed loss of confidence by leadership. However, a problem appears if the market value of the shares falls and the lender makes a margin call in which the borrower must increase the amount of collateral against the loan, whether that is more shares, other assets of value, or cash. The board won't want a large sale of shares because of the effect on the overall stock price, and yet they may also be concerned about the executive tying up even more shares as collateral. In 2016, The Wall Street Journal wrote about margin debt on company stock held by the CEO of trucking firm Swift Transportation. A share price downturn in 2015 left him with margin calls, some of which he met by pledging more company shares. The board had to raise its limits on pledging multiple times and approved a stock buyback to raise share prices as part of the response. The CEO had pledged what was a quarter of all outstanding shares. Sumner Redstone sold 20% of his stake in Viacom and CBS in late 2008 to meet margin calls. 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Now the share price is down sharply, and he received a margin call. Tesla's stock plunged about 8.5% by 2:20 p.m. on Thursday. As Forbes reported, this seems to be a result of the relationship between Must and President Donald Trump appearing to unravel, with each attacking the other. The Tesla 10-K for fiscal year 2024 cites Musk's borrowing as one of its risk factors: 'If Elon Musk were forced to sell shares of our common stock, either that he has pledged to secure certain personal loan obligations, or in satisfaction of other obligations, such sales could cause our stock price to decline.' In the eyes of some, that might not be enough. 'The valuation issue is a really important one,' says Nell Minow, an expert in corporate governance and chair of ValueEdge Advisors, an institutional investor advisory firm. 'Were representations made to the lenders contrary to what is being told to the shareholders?' She adds that 'stock valuations should recognize any restrictions on a significant portion of the stock.' And the amount of collateral that lenders, including big banks, want could be an indicator of concern over the stability of share prices, the direction of the company, and how much they can trust the CEO. Page 20 of Tesla's 10-K/A, filed January 30, 2025, for the company's fiscal year that ended December 31, 2024, explains the board's rules for 'directors and executive officers to pledge Tesla stock for personal loans and investments' as something 'inherently related to their compensation due to our use of equity awards and promotion of long-termism and an ownership culture.' Directors and executive officers can pledge stock (not including warrants, options, restricted stock units, or other rights to purchase stock) as loan or investment collateral. Everyone other than the CEO is limited to borrowing no more than 15% of the total value of the pledged stock. Musk, by name, has a more complex limitation: the lesser of $3.5 billion or 25% of the total value of the pledged stock. 'It's an area where boards play a critical role, because there aren't any laws or rules that regulate pledging of shares by CEOs,' says Larry Cunningham, director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware. 'All the rules that exist are disclosure rules. The SEC requires companies to disclose information about a CEO pledging shares.' Tesla's board explicitly notes on page 21 that 'such pledging does not indicate the extent to which there may be actual borrowings against such shares as of such date, which may be substantially less than the value of the shares pledged.' The total amount collateralized by all directors and officers 'was less than 1% of the total value of the pledged shares.' According to Tesla public documents, the company's management 'monitors compliance with the policy by regularly reviewing and requesting updates from the applicable director or executive officer on his or her pledged stock amount and loan amount.' Then, 'if necessary,' management reports to the board or its committees the extent of pledging. 'We believe that this monitoring is effective and includes appropriate controls, and we have confirmed that each of our directors and executive officers who have pledged stock are and have been compliant with this policy since our last confirmation,' they further said. Tesla did not respond to multiple requests for more insight into the situation. Also, PwC, the audit firm involved with the 10-K, said that it doesn't comment on organizations or clients. On page 23 is the list of beneficial owner names with at least 5% of shares, as well as named executive officers and directors, who may have less than 1%. 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Not just for Tesla, but any company whose executives could pledge significant amounts of stock for low valuations. 'Banks typically require 50-70% loan-to-value ratios on stock collateral, with daily mark-to-market,' says Giacomo Santangelo, a senior lecturer in economics at Fordham University. 'A 20% stock decline on a 60% loan-to-value loan means the borrower must immediately post additional collateral or face forced liquidation. This creates cascade risk, where small declines trigger margin calls, forcing either more pledging or open-market sales, putting more pressure on the stock.' Santangelo adds that from a share valuation perspective, 'traditional models miss this entirely' as they typically assume continuous liquidity. 'But pledged shares behave more like restricted stock with embedded put options held by creditors,' meaning there are two constraints. One is on the shareholder's ability to turn the shares into cash through a sale. The other is of a potential forced sale. 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Gizmodo
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