John Travolta back in Cannes to present his first film

For the 79th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, Hollywood legend John Travolta returns to the Croisette with his first feature film, Night Flight to Los Angeles.

John Travolta will set the Croisette swinging. Thirty-two years after the triumph of Pulp Fiction, decorated with the Palme d’Or in 1994, the actor who played the character of Vincent Vega in the famous twist scene, John Travolta, is back at the Cannes Film Festival with his very first feature film as a director: Night Flight to Los Angeles. The film is part of the Cannes Première section, with his one-hour feature film, adapted from his book published in 1997 “Propeller One-Way Night Coach” follows the story of a child who meets “his first love” at night, airplanes, which will soon be released on Apple TV.

An homage to his late son The 72-year-old filmmaker is a passionate aviator, owning numerous pilot licenses, a Dassault Falcon 900, a Boeing 737, and an Eclipse 500 jet. The American celebrity even had a runway at his Florida villa for a long time. In an interview for Business Jet Traveller, he sheds some light on the connection between his passion and his feature film: “You will understand my passion for aviation. It speaks of the golden age of luxury service in the air and how ideally we should still benefit from it today.” The film is even more anticipated as John Travolta originally wrote his book for his late son, Jett, who suffered from epilepsy since childhood and passed away at the age of 16 in 2009.

John Travolta made his start in the film industry as an actor in 1975 on American television channels. In 1977, he quickly rose to fame by becoming a symbol of the successful film with Saturday Night Fever by John Badham and then in his role in the musical comedy Grease the following year. He then took a step back before returning to the limelight two decades later with the global success of 1994, Pulp Fiction by Quentin Tarantino.

The ambassador of Hollywood cinema at Cannes During this 79th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, John Travolta is one of the few celebrities representing Hollywood. Initially, James Gray’s film, “Paper Tiger,” starring Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver, was not selected. John Travolta could have been the only ambassador of the American film industry this year.

Despite some successes, the actor has been experiencing a slight career downturn in the film industry for several years. Indeed, as an actor, he appears in numerous films, but they are considered direct-to-film productions focusing more on quantity than quality. Audiences have recently seen him in Cash Out, Speed Kills, or Paradise City.

A rollercoaster career In the 2000s, the author of his biography, Philippe Durant, noted that John Travolta was “struggling” in “films where he doesn’t appear for very long, even when his name is prominently displayed on the poster. This is the case for many actors once they reach a certain age. De Niro or Pacino do the same. In fact, another generation has taken their place. But these former headliners still attract audiences. And for them, it becomes a routine that ensures their livelihood.”

The main concern himself admits it: “… instead of seeing lulls as a bad thing, you should see them as a field of possibilities that open up to everything new that can happen to you,” he stated at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018 when presenting the thriller “Gotti,” which resulted in a commercial failure. It is therefore with his first feature film that the filmmaker hopes to take us to new heights.