As for Cannes this year, Spielberg told Telerama, "I believe that, before they are shown, all films are equal. Whether they are small or big, they are a sum of the personal visions and collaborative efforts. Each time the filmmaker's intentions are the same, whether it is Christopher Nolan or Michael Haneke: to express what he has inside."

Spielberg left for the festival about a month ago from Ft. Lauderdale, sailing on his 282-foot yacht, named the Seven Seas, which is, according to the New York Post, equipped with "a computer-controlled anti-seasickness system under the hull." Spielberg plans to sail the world with his wife and some of their kids following the Cannes fest. Initial rumors as Spielberg left were that he would host screenings of some of the Cannes films for jurors on the yacht, but those rumors have since been denied. But the yacht does have a 3D movie theater. And, according to Roger Friedman, the yacht also has a poolside movie screen. "It boasts luxury amenities for 12 guests," states Friedman, "with a crew of 26. There is a large master stateroom with a study and private deck, a helipad, indoor cinema and an infinity pool with a 15-foot glass wall that converts to a movie screen so the director and his guests can take in a film while swimming.”

"It has long been Tarantino’s custom," writes Stasukevich, "to screen dozens of movies for his key creatives early in prep to help establish the language of the universe they will create. For Django Unchained, Richardson recalls, these screenings included Sergio Corbucci’s The Great Silence, Dario Argento’s Suspiria, Lucio Fulci’s Don’t Torture a Duckling, Mario Bava’s Black Sunday, Max Ophüls’ The Earrings of Madame de …, Brian De Palma’s Carrie, Sergio Leone’s For a Few Dollars More and Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo. 'That’s by no means a complete list,' adds Richardson."

In 2009, Tarantino agreed "vigorously" with one interviewer who suggested that the fiery climax of Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds channeled De Palma's Carrie. It is worth noting that Django Unchained marks the second film in a row in which Tarantino stages a bloody climax amidst the setting of a palatial balcony, such as that in the conclusion of De Palma's Scarface. In his review of Django Unchained, Life Goes Strong's David Weiss suggests that the film keeps Scarface in mind toward the end. "Though one could take a nap in the expository first hour," Weiss states, "the second and third acts are reeling headlong to a brutal barrage of bullets mindful of Brian De Palma's much-satirized ending of Scarface." The critic John Kenneth Muir has noted at some length the way the climax of Inglourious Basterds quotes heavily from the works of De Palma, particularly Carrie and Scarface.

WRIGHT: "A FULL-BLOWN & FULL-BLOODED TEENAGE POP OPERA"
Meanwhile, last September, Sight&Sound ran its once-a-decade lists of the greatest films of all time, as chosen by critics (there was much chatter at the time about Vertigo supplanting Citizen Kane on the list as the greatest film of all time). As a side article, the magazine included the top 10 lists of several international directors, including Tarantino and Edgar Wright, who both included Carrie on their lists.

Tarantino characteristically listed 12 films instead of ten, with no other comments. He listed Sergio Leone's The Good, The Bad And The Ugly on top (at least, that's how it's listed in the print version), and everything else alphabetically: Apocalypse Now, The Bad News Bears, Carrie, Dazed And Confused, The Great Escape, His Girl Friday, Jaws, Pretty Maids All In A Row, Rolling Thunder, Sorcerer, and Taxi Driver.

Wright listed each of his in alphabetical order, and included brief explanations of each choice. Wright's films were: 2001: A Space Odyssey, An American Werewolf In London, Carrie, Dames, Don't Look Now, Duck Soup, Psycho, Raising Arizona, Taxi Driver, and The Wild Bunch. "In Carrie," Wright commented, "Brian De Palma takes Stephen King's horror of adolescence and turns it into a full-blown and full-blooded teenage pop opera. They didn't need to turn it into a musical-- it already was one."

Peirce also discusses with Calautti the similarities between the horror genre and her previous films. "Well, Boys Don’t Cry was not exactly a romantic comedy. [laughs] But let’s just say my other movies are cousins of horror. It was fantastic, because I realized – it being the cousin of what I’ve done before, the structure’s the same. I still want you to be terrified, I still want you to be affected viscerally by everything. I still want you to dream, but I can have … there’s a more obvious fun, which is, you know, when the mother’s beating up the daughter I don’t want you to say, 'Oh, I feel bad' like maybe you felt in my other movies. I want you to say, 'Oh, God, that’s great – do it again!' There’s a moment when Margaret hits Carrie with the Bible, and every time I screen it everybody’s like, 'Wow, why do we like that?' Because there’s pleasure in the pain. So it’s about celebrating the pain. It’s a turning of the dial."

Finally, Calautti asks Peirce if she felt any pressure to compete with the famous ending of De Palma's version. "Well," she tells Calautti, "Brian said to me, 'So what are you gonna do about that end?' And I was like, 'Brian, I know you revolutionized cinema …' [laughs] Of course it’s on my mind! I’m not blind to the brilliance of his movie, but I’m also not blind to the fact that I can’t go down a road that he’s done. You have to be mindful. And I just don’t think you have to try to duplicate something that is so unique and so brilliant and revolutionized cinema. I mean, maybe I should be bolder and do it, but I think I’m a little too wise to. So I think you do something different, I think you just make sure your movie is what it is and that it fires on all cylinders as much as you can. And if you find yourself in a situation where you can top it, do it. But you probably won’t."

Entertainment Weekly has a description of the teaser trailer that was shown:

The NYCC crowd got an exclusive first look at Carrie‘s teaser trailer, which begins with a helicopter shot showing the school gym on fire, but then shows a trail of destruction leading throughout Carrie‘s small town…ending with a close-up on a blood-covered Moretz. The teaser features a cacophony of voices talking about Carrie — including the memorable line “She wasn’t some monster. She was just a girl.” — implying, perhaps, that the remake would adhere close to the structure of King’s original novel, which was written in a pseudo-epistolary style. (Brian De Palma’s original Carrie film in the late ’70s jettisoned that structure in favor of a more straightforward linear narrative.)