A major award in an actor's career, Michael Douglas will receive the honorary palme d'or at the Cannes Film Festival during the opening ceremony on May 16. A reward "which will salute his brilliant career and his commitment to the cinema", underline the organizers. "After more than fifty years of career, it is an honor to return to the Croisette to open the Festival and speak our common language, that of cinema", reacted the actor of Basic Instinct and Wall Street, in a press release .
Michael Douglas presented four films in competition at Cannes: The Chinese Syndrome by James Bridges in 1979, Basic Instinct by Paul Verhoeven in 1992, Free Fall by Joel Schumacher in 1993 and My Life with Liberace by Steven Soderbergh in 2013.
His father, Kirk Douglas, had presided over the festival's jury in 1980.
Michael Douglas, now 78, won the Best Actor Oscar in 1988 for the role of New York broker Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's Wall Street. The sequel, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, screened out of competition at Cannes in 2010.
He was also rewarded as a producer with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Milos Forman, Oscar for Best Picture in 1976.
The 76th edition of the festival, which will be held from May 16 to 27, has yet to announce the composition of its jury, chaired by Swedish director Ruben Östlund, who won his second Palme d'Or last year with his film Without filter. .
