Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield are teaming up for an exciting project!
28.04.2024 - 17:57 / justjared.com
Challengers is No. 1!
The Luca Guadagnino-directed, Zendaya-led movie claimed the top spot at the box office across its opening weekend, pulling in $15 million from 3,477 theaters, via THR.
It marks the second-best start for an original R-rated drama since the pandemic, behind Don’t Worry Darling.
Keep reading to find out more…
Challengers will become Luca Guadagnino’s highest-grossing film domestically after Call Me By Your Name, which grossed roughly $18 million.
The film also brought in $9 million from 52 markets for a global score of $25 million.
Audiences gave it a B+ CinemaScore, while the film commands an 87% among critics on Rotten Tomatoes.
Challengers stars Zendaya as Tashi Duncan, a former tennis prodigy turned coach and a force of nature who makes no apologies for her game on and off the court. Married to a champion on a losing streak (Mike Faist), Tashi’s strategy for her husband’s redemption takes a surprising turn when he must face off against the washed-up Patrick (Josh O’Connor) – his former best friend and Tashi’s former boyfriend. As their pasts and presents collide, and tensions run high, Tashi must ask herself, what will it cost to win.
Find out if you need to stick around for an end credits scene.
Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield are teaming up for an exciting project!
Glamour's senior west coast editor Jessica Radloff said it first: Challengers is set to be the .That's certainly the case here in the office. Some staffers loved it (hi, hello), while others were disappointed or worse—bored.
Luca Guadagnino believes filmgoers will endorse his Zendaya movie Challengers because it delivers “a canon of Hollywood golden age comedy – seductive fun with queerness.” The movie’s “big sell” is a shot of Zendaya, Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor kissing one another in various configurations.
standout soundtrack, Challengers is one of the best films of 2024.Directed by Luca Guadagnino, the spicy sports drama follows professional tennis champion Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) who is plotting a career comeback with the help of his wife Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), a former tennis rising star who was forced to retire due to an injury.At a tournament, however, Art is matched against Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor), who is his former best friend and his wife’s ex lover.Along with starring in the film, Zendaya also serves as a producer alongside Guadagnino, Rachel O’Connor and Amy Pascal.The entirety of Challengers is told in a nonlinear fashion, as the love triangle between Art Donaldson, Tashi Duncan and Patrick Zweig is unraveled through flashbacks in the build-up to the climactic tennis match in the present.A day prior to the match between Art and Patrick, Tashi tells her husband Art that if he loses the match, she will leave him – in what’s pitched as a motivator to spur him to win in order to get his tennis career back on track. Later on, Tashi meets with Patrick to ask him to throw the match in Art’s favour, and while he hesitantly agrees, the pair end up briefly rekindling their past romance and have sex in the back of a car.At the match in the present, just as Patrick looks to throw the match by losing points with foul serves, he communicates to Art that he had sex with his wife the night prior by placing his tennis ball against the centre of his racket before his serve – something he did years prior when he first started dating Tashi.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!
Zack Sharf Digital News Director SPOILER ALERT: This article contains plot details for “Challengers,” now playing in theaters. All Tashi Duncan wanted was great tennis. At the end of Luca Guadagnino’s buzzy tennis drama “Challengers,” the camera freezes on Tashi (Zendaya) as she screams “come on!” following a match point volley for the ages between competitors Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor) and Art Donaldson (Mike Faist). The volley got so intense that it ends with Art leaping over the net and falling into Patrick’s arms.
Challengers, it's clear she's in complete control. From the strong whip of her braid and sexy moonlit skin as a young rising tennis star, to her sharp honey blonde bob and perfect nude manicure as a mother and mogul, Tashi's look is punctuated by power.Of course, her commanding presence on screen is a testament to Zendaya, who plays the tennis champ-turned coach in Luca Guadagnino's new romance drama.
have been on a globetrotting press tour to get the word out about Italian director Luca Guadagnino’s original film, which opened in 3,477 locations in the US and Canada.“We’re obviously very, very happy with the number,” said Kevin Wilson, who heads theatrical distribution for Amazon Studios and MGM. “Looking at the audience who showed up, it’s really encouraging.
Josh O’Connor is best known to most audiences for his Emmy-winning performance as a young King Charles in seasons three and four of "The Crown." But for his new film, "Challengers," co-starring Zendaya and "West Side Story" star Mike Faist, he’s showing a whole new side of himself. O’Connor plays tennis pro Patrick, one-third of a love triangle with Tashi (Zendaya), a tennis pro poised for greatness before an injury relegates her to coaching, and Art (Faist), another well-to-do tennis pro.Tashi eventually marries Art, and Patrick comes back into their lives years later, kicking off tensions and connections, including a racy threesome.
SPOILER ALERT: This article contains details about Challengers.
Selome Hailu When Justin Kuritzkes began writing what later became the hottest love triangle of the year, there was no star power involved. Though he was already an accomplished playwright and novelist (and the husband of Celine Song, the writer-director who provided last year’s buzziest love triangle with “Past Lives”), “Challengers” was Kuritzkes’ first screenplay and began as a document on his computer that no one was paying him to finish. But in 2021, “Challengers” appeared on the Black List, an annual roundup of the most popular unproduced scripts in Hollywood, which helped him sell it to producers Amy Pascal and Rachel O’Connor.
J. Kim Murphy “Challengers” netted a $6.2 million opening day from 3,477 North American theaters, a figure that includes $1.9 million from preview screenings. Amazon MGM Studios‘ love-triangle drama is set to match industry projections for a $15 million debut.
Selome Hailu “I’m watching tennis as we speak — Djokovic,” Zendaya tells me during one of her first interviews about “Challengers.” It’s July 11, 2023. The 27-year-old actor is watching Wimbledon on TV while preparing for SAG-AFTRA to go on strike, which would leave her unable to attend her film’s Aug. 30 world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.
Zendaya is back on the big screen this weekend in her first-ever leading role for a feature film with the tennis movie Challengers.
Amazon MGM Studios’ Challengers, starring Zendaya and directed by Luca Guadagnino, made $1.9M in previews, a figure $100K shy of what Universal’s Cocaine Bear did. The tennis sexy romcom is hoping to open to $15M for the weekend.
Challengers, the new tennis-based film starring Zendaya, is out in cinemas tomorrow (April 26).It’s the latest film from acclaimed director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name, Bones and All), and centres on an intense love triangle between tennis coach Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) and rival racket-thrashers Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor) and Art Donaldson (Mike Faist), who is also her husband.In a four-star review of the film, NME wrote: “The performances are exceptional, with off-the-scale chemistry between all three leads. Zendaya, in particular, is a force of nature, and you feel her angry frustration at her own career path (which was cut short by injury) in every scene.
Rebecca Rubin Senior Film and Media Reporter Game, set… but there’s not much of a match. “Challengers,” a steamy tennis drama starring Zendaya and directed by Luca Guadagnino, is poised to lead the domestic box office without much in the way of competition. The film, from Amazon MGM, is projected to collect $12 million to $15 million from 3,400 North American theaters in its opening weekend.
Zendaya wonders why her kissing scenes get a lot of attention when she’s just doing her job.
Naman Ramachandran Studiocanal’s Amy Winehouse biopic “Back to Black” stayed atop the U.K. and Ireland box office for the second consecutive weekend with £1.8 million ($2.3 million), according to numbers from Comscore. The film now has a running total of £6.3 million.
From almost all accounts, it seems like Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino has another hit on his hands with “Challengers,” a new tennis drama from MGM Studios that’s actually more of a love-triangle romance bundled into the sports genre. Starring Zendaya (Marvel’s “Spider-Man” franchise and the “Dune” series), Josh O’Connor (“Dr.