Elijah Wood breaks huge Cannes festival red carpet rule

Elijah Wood was strutting his stuff on the red carpet at Cannes today (12 May) but in doing so he ended up breaking a rule that's been in place since 2018.

He was there in part to hand over an honorary Palme d’Or award to his Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, saying: "You showed the world something it had never seen before, and nothing was ever the same.

"He helped build an entirely new filmmaking culture at the far edge of the world."

However, while the actor was on the red carpet he was seen taking a selfie with several others, and according to the rules of the Cannes Film Festival that's a big no-no.

'No selfies' has been a rule at Cannes since 2018, with the restriction imposed to stop guests from slowing proceedings on the red carpet to a crawl.

Elijah, no! You'll get in trouble! (Ernesto Ruscio/Getty Images)

The first attempt to ban selfies on the Cannes red carpet came in 2015, with The Guardian reporting that Cannes Film Festival director Thierry Frémaux had tried declaring a ban as he said: "You never look as ugly as you do in a selfie."

However, according to Deadline the Cannes ban to avoid a red carpet jam wasn't enforced until 2018, with festival security now trying to clear out famous folk who turn the camera on themselves with shouting 'or even worse'.

Fortunately for Elijah Wood he seemed to get away with his little rule break and it should all be fine just as long as everyone else doesn't go back to doing it.

He managed to present Peter Jackson with his award later on so security evidently didn't turn to their 'even worse' measures that Deadline alluded to.

Even though Cannes has partnered with Meta they haven't relaxed the selfie ban to open the doors for the kind of content that does well on those platforms.

He presented Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson with an award at Cannes, so evidently they let him in after the selfie (Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)

However, the festival is bowing to technology in one regard as TikToker Reece Feldman will be allowed to film red carpet interviews using his Meta glasses.

Cannes can't stay the same way forever and it does have to move with the times a little bit, though it's still the film festival where the famous gather to give movies standing ovations of such length you have to imagine their hands must be red raw from clapping by the end.

As for Elijah Wood, who seems like a class act when dealing with the fans of his many movies, he surely didn't mean anything untoward by taking a selfie on the Cannes red carpet.

We'd expect no less from 'The Guy'.