Woody Allen premieres his latest film at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday, finding comfort and adulation in Europe away from controversies that have tarnished his name in the United States.

The famed American director, who has produced more than 50 movies, is best known for a film career that has concentrated on his life-long love affair with New York, the city of his birth.

Johnny Depp’s pet dogs Pistol and Boo were expected to fly out of Australia on Friday and escape threats to put them down, after a complex and often comical quarantine wrangle.

But Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce, who had warned the dogs could be destroyed within hours, said the threat had not entirely disappeared if Depp is unable to get the terriers home to America.

A film version of "The Office" with Ricky Gervais and a Pablo Escobar biopic with husband-and-wife stars Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz were among the projects landing deals at the Cannes Film Festival as it entered its second day on Thursday.

Gervais's excruciating office boss will get the feature-length treatment after BBC Films and Entertainment One announced they were backing "Life on the Road", according to the Hollywood Reporter.

A company helping British soprano Sarah Brightman prepare a flight to the International Space Station says she has put off the mission.

Space Adventures said in a statement Wednesday that the 54-year-old singer announced that "for personal family reasons her intentions have had to change and she is postponing her cosmonaut training and flight plans at this time."

The Cannes Film Festival was to slip into high gear on Thursday by screening a new "Mad Max" film and firing the starter's gun on its competition for the Palme d'Or prize.

The second day of the 12-day event on the Riviera promised greater star power than the opening day, when a French social drama starring Catherine Deneuve, "Standing Tall", was shown out of the competition. 

Johnny Depp's pet dogs Pistol and Boo have been ordered by Australia to "bugger off" back to Hollywood or face being put down after he flew the terriers into the country illegally -- as thousands signed a petition to save them.

The actor, who is in Australia to film "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales", was given the grim warning by Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce on Thursday.

Jennifer Lopez, a pop sensation starting in the late 1990s whose career has since matured, will turn her repertoire into a Las Vegas show.

The New York-born star of Puerto Rican heritage announced Tuesday night that she will start a residency in Las Vegas in January next year, running with breaks through June.

Britain's Prince Harry performed a fearsome Maori war dance, or haka, and mingled with tattooed ex-convicts on his trip to New Zealand Wednesday.

Red-faced and sweating with exertion, the fifth in line to the throne participated in a chest-thumping, foot-stomping haka alongside about 30 soldiers at the Linton army camp north of Wellington.

The Cannes film festival eschews its usual blockbuster kick-off on Wednesday, opening with a gritty French film that marks only the second time a female director has won the coveted first slot.

Normally reserved for flashy hits such as "Moulin Rouge" or "The Fifth Element", the opening selection this year is "Standing Tall", starring French icon Catherine Deneuve.

Happily-married Oscar-winning Australian actress Cate Blanchett has revealed she had "many" past relationships with women in an interview with an American magazine.

The Australian, 45, made the comment while promoting her latest film "Carol", in which she plays a bisexual woman in 1950s New York.