For a few hours on Tuesday night, David Zaslav gave the impression of the happiest guy in the global.
“Look at this!” the 63-year-old media government proclaimed, gesturing at the ice-blue piscine of the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, the beach lodge perched above the French Riviera with a swimming pool immortalized by Slim Aarons.
Yachts bobbed in the distance; searchlights crossed the sky. Somewhere in the crowd, Leonardo DiCaprio was once dressed in vegan sneakers, and Lily-Rose Depp was once smoking a Cuban cigar.
Not see you later in the past, as the boss of middlebrow Discovery Inc., Mr. Zaslav was once referred to as a cable TV tycoon who retailed truth fare like “My 600-lb Life” and “Dr. Pimple Popper.” On the evening of the occasion, a 12 months after Discovery wolfed up WarnerMedia in a blockbuster deal — and put Mr. Zaslav the in rate of HBO, CNN and the Warner Bros. film studio — he was once huddling with Scarlett Johansson and having dinner at a desk with Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro.
Officially, the tournament, a social spotlight of the Cannes Film Festival, was once a a hundredth anniversary occasion for Warner Bros. Unofficially, it was once the A-listification of Hollywood’s latest wealthy person.
As a relative newcomer to this rarefied milieu, Mr. Zaslav had enlisted a professional information — his co-host for the night, Graydon Carter, who made Vanity Fair’s Oscar occasion into a glittering annual tournament all through his 25-year run as the mag’s editor. Now Air Mail, Mr. Carter’s upscale e-newsletter, was once making its personal Cannes debut.
“I love the motion picture business, and to be here tonight at Cannes …” Mr. Zaslav stated, trailing off. At one level, a demonstration of himself and Mr. Carter riding a antique Mercedes alongside the Riviera was once projected onto the floor of the well-known pool. “Here we are, two best friends, at the Hotel du Cap,” he stated. “I don’t know — it doesn’t get better!”
Mr. Zaslav’s troubles have been hundreds of miles away.
Wags on Twitter have been mocking the determination to drop the “HBO” from the streaming platform HBO Max, a trade that went into impact hours sooner than the occasion started. CNN was once dealing with a extended backlash for its the city corridor with former President Donald J. Trump, and the community’s scores have every now and then dipped underneath the ones of the right-wing cable news station Newsmax.
Then there was once the Hollywood writers’ strike. While different studio chiefs like Ted Sarandos of Netflix had canceled appearances and saved a low profile amid the exertions strife, Mr. Zaslav solid forward. On Sunday, sooner than jetting to France, he gave a graduation deal with at Boston University, the place he was once booed and heckled (after which memed) by way of scholars who chanted, “Pay your writers!”
There have been no wooden strains in the south of France, partially as a result of native police banned them. And the Mediterranean temper was once extra forgiving.
The playwright Jeremy O. Harris was once amongst the visitors at the Hotel du Cap. “I have a show with HBO,” he stated, “so David is still technically my boss, even though we’re on strike.” He added that he had come to Cannes “as an actor” — he has a function in a movie proven at the competition, “The Sweet East” — and he had “tried to treat all the work and activism I do around the writers’ strike with the same amount of fervor here.”
Like different visitors, Mr. Harris stated he was once excited to snag one of the custom-printed ashtrays. “I’m continuing to exist in the world, while also knowing that my corner of it has a really dark thing happening,” he stated.
As Mr. Zaslav bopped about in Loro Piana loafers, his co-host, Mr. Carter, watched from a take away. This was once Mr. Zaslav’s 2d Cannes commute; Mr. Carter, 73, has been a common right here for more or less 25 years.
Air Mail has a continental taste and a rising readership however isn’t but a family identify. So, overdue final 12 months, Mr. Carter dusted off the Rolodex and gave a occasion for his project at the Odeon eating place in Lower Manhattan. When Mr. Zaslav approached him with the concept of website hosting one thing on Oscar evening, he countered with Cannes, the place he had held an annual occasion for a lot of his Vanity Fair tenure. Adding to the intrigue: Vanity Fair, now led by way of the editor Radhika Jones, was once making plans its personal Hotel du Cap bash. In a particularly haute monde sense, this was once warfare.
On Tuesday morning at the lodge, Mr. Carter was once girding for a last-minute assembly about the seating chart. Over coffee, he demurred on the perception of a competition along with his previous employer and was once coy about what he’d heard about the Vanity Fair tournament a few days previous. “I’m sure it was fine,” he stated.
(Jeff Bezos and Mr. De Niro got here to the Vanity Fair occasion on Saturday evening, although the climate was once deficient. Miuccia Prada, whose namesake emblem co-hosted the tournament, didn’t attend; a Prada spokeswoman stated there was once a scheduling war.)
Mr. Carter stated he met Mr. Zaslav 25 years in the past thru mutual overlords: the Newhouse circle of relatives, who’re the homeowners of Condé Nast and in addition traders in Discovery Inc. (The circle of relatives has a stake in Warner Bros. Discovery, too.) The males bonded partially over a shared love of Turner Classic Movies, a channel this is now phase of Mr. Zaslav’s solid. And now Mr. Carter has gamely taken on the Henry Higgins function.
He helped dealer Mr. Zaslav’s acquire of the Beverly Hills house of the overdue manufacturer Robert Evans, coordinating along with his ex-wife, Ali MacGraw (a good friend). Mr. Carter stated he and his longtime architect, Basil Walter, who was once additionally at the occasion, are redesigning the Warner Bros. commissary in Burbank, Calif. (“I thought, this is Hollywood — it shouldn’t look like a Marriott,” Mr. Carter stated.) The refurbished canteen will function banquettes and work of art reminiscent of Monkey Bar, Mr. Carter’s former Manhattan eating place.
During the final writers’ strike, in 2008, Mr. Carter canceled Vanity Fair’s Oscar occasion. What about this 12 months in Cannes? “It’s a celebration of what writers have done, so it’s not like this is antithetical to their aim,” he stated, including, “Writers aren’t paid as much as they should be.”
A couple of mins later, Mr. Zaslav bounded up and gave Mr. Carter a bro hug.
“I’ve been working hard for this party,” Mr. Zaslav stated with a grin, “calling Graydon every two days and asking how it’s going.”
A Baby and a Maltipoo
After alighting from luxurious vehicles in the palm-shaded driveway of the Hotel du Cap, visitors have been greeted on Tuesday with hugs and handshakes from Mr. Zaslav and Mr. Carter — in just about matching tan linen blazers. “Not intentional,” Mr. Carter stated, a Pygmalion warily eyeing his student.
Inside, there have been sufficient ashtrays to fill the “21” Club again when everyone smoked. Staff in black and white livery have been fast to proffer lighters for the ones with cigarettes.
The actor John C. Reilly, in a hat and three-piece swimsuit, took in the view. Eva Longoria and Oliver Stone crossed paths. Ms. Depp and Troye Sivan, whose HBO collection “The Idol” premiered the evening sooner than, regarded alert regardless of an after-party that went till break of day. The heiress Daphne Guinness glittered in a silver robe and her signature bicolor updo. Boy George was once there in a very tall hat.
The Hotel du Cap overlaps with many of Mr. Carter’s pursuits: Old Hollywood, the Lost Generation and midcentury European glamour. It is the “large, proud, rose-colored hotel” in the opening strains of Fitzgerald’s “Tender is the Night” and a liked hang-out of Picasso and Hemingway, Burton and Taylor, Delon and Bardot. Ms. Bardot’s stepson, the Swiss artist Rolf Sachs, who arrived in a sweeping cobalt frock, noticed that the lodge had lengthy been “part of the creation of a new bourgeoisie.”
“Graydon has the oomph to bring together a very mixed crowd,” he stated.
Dinner was once served on Bernardaud plates. Dessert was once an extravagant sweet bar referred to as “Comme un Snickers.” Things in point of fact kicked off when a well-dressed child arrived a short time previous 11 p.m., its stroller carried down a curving staircase by way of a lodge porter. Another well-liked visitor was once Maxi, a 3-month-old caramel-colored Maltipoo, who like many of the attendees had flown in from New York.
Maxi, who was once busy licking an ice dice, declined to remark, however his proprietor, the film producer and Venetian slipper purveyor Stuart Parr, marveled at the tablescapes. “This is made out of ceramic, not plastic,” he stated, mentioning an Air Mail-branded fit striker nestled between white orchids. “That tells you everything.”
Sting walked in a short time sooner than nighttime. Ms. Johansson arrived along with her husband, Colin Jost, after the Cannes premiere of “Asteroid City,” the Wes Anderson movie by which she has a key function. She chatted on the dance flooring with Bryan Lourd, her agent and the co-chairman of C.A.A., and Joe Kahn, the government editor of The New York Times. (Mr. Kahn sat with Mr. Carter and Mr. Walter at dinner.)
Mr. Zaslav can have been the co-host, however some of the visitors have been nonetheless getting to grasp him. Michael Barker, a co-president of Sony Pictures Classics, stated he had met Mr. Zaslav for the first time that night and favored his sense of movie historical past. Boy George stated he discovered Mr. Zaslav “very sweet.”
As at any business tournament, some trade were given completed. Mr. Zaslav, Mr. De Niro and Mr. DiCaprio have been tossing round new titles for “Wise Guys,” a mob drama that Mr. Zaslav greenlighted after taking up Warner Bros. Boy George stated he was once open to any roles the Hollywood crowd may throw his means: “I’ve been talking to Rebel Wilson about playing her gay friend.”
By 2 a.m., after the disco and new wave track pale and the area lighting fixtures went up, Mr. Zaslav was once nonetheless running the room. He shook fingers with the D.J.
The view from the slowly emptying pool deck — crimson sky, darkish sea, white yachts — was once roughly the similar person who Jack Warner, the studio’s longtime president, as soon as loved from Villa Aujourd’hui, his summer time house, about 700 meters away.
Vanessa Friedman contributed reporting.