The Cannes Lions Entertainment Person of the Year 2026 isn’t a traditional Hollywood studio boss or network head. It is Eddy Cue, Apple‘s senior VP of services. The Silicon Valley powerbroker commanded the stage Monday midday at the Lumière Theatre in the Cannes Palais des Festival in a crowded keynote seminar, and he did so in tandem with a big-name Hollywood player, namely hit producer Jerry Bruckheimer.
Cue oversees Apple TV, Apple Music and Apple’s film and TV studios, while also serving as senior vp of health. Among Apple’s original hit series are the likes of Pluribus, which he has touted as the “biggest series to date” for the platform and Ted Lasso.
Cue and Bruckheimer, on Monday, again teased a sequel to the hit film F1. “We’re going to come back and hopefully make another F1,” producer Bruckheimer told the audience, also mentioning the name of F1 and Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski.
Cue later added: “We’re going to do it again. Hopefully, we’re doing another Formula 1 movie. I think everyone wants to see another one. It was Brad Pitt’s biggest movie of all time. … It was a great story, it was fun, and you loved it when you were walking out of the theater or watching it at home.”
Bruckheimer echoed that, sharing with the Cannes Lions crowd about the reactions to the F1 film: “So many people come to me and say, ‘Jerry, when I want to show my kids something, I’ll turn on F1 because I feel so good after seeing the movie,’ and that’s what we try to do. We try to entertain audiences around the world and tell them a great story, excite them, make them laugh, make them cry, make them feel better when they walk out.”
He concluded: “Thanks to Eddy, we had that opportunity to do it, and we’re so fortunate that he’s a sports fan and an F1 fan. Without him, I don’t think the movie would have gotten made.”
Cue and Bruckheimer also mentioned the planned UFO conspiracy thriller to be directed by the latter and directed by Kosinski. “We’re going to get to work together again, not just on F1, but with Joseph Kosinski and yourself on a new project that you’re working on about UAPs,” Cue mentioned on stage.
Bruckheimer shared: “It’s kind of All the President’s Men about what the government has been hiding, what’s been going on with UAPs [or unidentified anomalous phenomena] all these years. We found these two gentlemen who were working for the government and couldn’t quite figure out what was going on, seeing these anomalies, and kept asking a lot of questions, and had a lot of doors shut up.”
Theatrical windowing also came up in that context. “We pitched [F1] to nine different exhibitors, studios, and Apple came to us with the most creative way, keeping in theaters, they said, for 45 days,” Bruckheimer shared. “But as it turned out, they left it there as long as people were buying tickets, which was really a great experience for audiences. And then it went to streaming and was a big success for them.”
Cue added: “One of the things that we try to do is not having rules of how things have to be, and so this whole issue of the 45-day window, and whether and for how many shows you put on all [episodes] at once,” he said. “We’re going to adjust and do the right thing for that particular moment, and so we shouldn’t make decisions ahead of time.” In the case of F1, it proved popular in cinemas. He described his reaction: “The 45-day window is up … and people are still watching [in cinemas]. Just leave it there!”
His conclusion: “When you are trying to be the best, you can’t have hard and fast rules. You have to be flexible, you have to be able to move quickly.”
Cue on Monday also shared how he approaches Apple’s content strategy. About six and a half years ago, “We didn’t license any content. We started from scratch,” he emphasized. After all, for him, the content focus is on “the best, not the most.”
Pointing to unlikely show pitches, such as Severance or even Ted Lasso, Cue said that one key to success for him is: “You have to believe in the creative team.”
Mentioning the likes of Severance and The Studio, Cue offered: “I think we have some of the best television shows.” Lauding the “amazing” programming team that Apple built from scratch, led by Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg, he vowed: “We are just getting started. There’s a lot more to do.”
Sports is one of the areas Cue and his team are betting on. “We’re excited about sports,” he told the Cannes Lions crowd on Monday. “It’s still the minority, but it adds to the service.”
Apple is even an EGOT winner now, with Cue sharing how the company’s Schmigadoon! recently won the best musical Tony. “I never heard of this thing called an EGOT before, which means an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony. Now we have it.”
The Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity has become a must-attend event for people across media, entertainment, advertising, technology and beyond each June.
“As the architect of Apple’s services and entertainment strategy, Eddy Cue has overseen the creation of one of the world’s most distinctive creative studios,” Cannes Lions said. “Under his leadership, Apple TV has established itself as a home for acclaimed storytelling in television and film, earning critical recognition and building a reputation for quality and creative courage. From early original releases to a growing slate of award-winning content, Apple TV has demonstrated that ambition and integrity in storytelling are not in conflict with commercial success.”
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