It won the Palme d’Or. The award was delivered by drone. Xander Cage’s leather harness was added to the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection.
It started with a deep-fake TikTok: Xander Cage riding a rocket-propelled snowboard through a Vegas casino, set to a remix of “Gangsta’s Paradise.” Twelve hours later, it had 200 million views. Then came the “Xander Challenge”—fans performing stunts from the original 2002 film (modified, of course, for living rooms and parking lots). A kid in Ohio jumped a dirt bike over three minivans wearing a sleeveless hoodie. The clip got 80 million likes.
Then, on a Tuesday in April, the algorithm woke up.