By Brent Lang, Matt Donnelly
Variety via Getty Images In 2001, Thierry Frémaux arrived in Cannes with a mandate: Build a bridge to Hollywood.
The newly installed festival director made a pilgrimage to Los Angeles to sell the major studios on the virtues of having their movies premiere on the Riviera. And he found two important believers in Tom Rothman and Jim Gianopulos, who were running 20th Century Fox at the time, and were trying to find the right platform to launch Baz Luhrmann’s “Moulin Rouge!,” a jukebox musical starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor as tragic lovers. They decided that Cannes, which helped shape France’s reputation as a destination for global cinema, was the perfect fit for a film that was a love letter to Paris. The opening night bash was one of the most storied in Cannes’ history — champagne flowed and more than 1,000 guests partied as cancan dancers performed and DJ Fatboy Slim worked the turntables.
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