Variety‘s Elsa Keslassy is reporting that the 2021 Cannes Film Festival is looking to postpone the mid-May event until…possibly in July. Probably. It would happen “sometime between” July 5th and 25th, the story says.

Because the festival honchos have calculated that despite the vaccine and all, the pandemic will still be a monster four months hence — a fairly good guess.

What are the odds that things will be free and clear six months hence? Slightly better than May, but that’s not saying a whole lot.

The July projection is a dream, a “wing and a prayer” scenario, a flyer, a guess, a “please God, you cancelled last May’s festival but don’t do it again in ’21…not two years in a row…Jesus H. Christ!”

When will things really be safe for film festivals as we used to know them? When can we go back to the good old normal? I think we’ll be lucky if that happens by early ’22. Right now I’d say it looks a wee bit dicey for the 2021 fall festivals (Venice, Telluride, Toronto), which are eight months off as we speak.