Luca Guadagnino Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Challengers is No. 1!

Jack Dunn If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. Luca Guadagnino‘s “Challengers” is swinging into streaming. The Zendaya-led drama is now available to rent/purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV+.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The persistent vibrancy of Italian cinema, despite increasing financing difficulties, is undisputable if you look at the range of the country’s current output and what’s percolating in the pipeline. It spans from highly sophisticated new works by maestros such as Paolo Sorrentino and Luca Guadagnino to crassly commercial global megahits like Netflix Italy original “The Tearsmith” and promising fresh fare from Cinema Italiano’s next generation.

Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino is having quite the year. His tennis comedy/love triangle film “Challengers,” starring Zendaya, has already grossed $68 million worldwide—not bad for a drama without a major I.P.

Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield are teaming up for an exciting project!

EXCLUSIVE: Andrew Garfield is in negotiations to star alongside Julia Roberts in Amazon MGM Studios’ upcoming feature After the Hunt, which will be released in theaters next year. Luca Guadagnino is directing the film from a script penned by Nora Garrett. Imagine Entertainment’s Brian Grazer and Allan Mandelbaum are producing alongside Guadagnino via his Frenesy banner. Imagine Entertainment’s Karen Lunder will executive produce alongside Nora Garrett. The film is targeting a summer start-of-production.

Loewe creative director Jonathan Anderson was an honorary co-chair at the 2024 Met Gala and he kept the party going at one of the most star-studded after parties of the night!

Tom Holland was unfortunately not in attendance at the 2024 Met Gala, though many were hoping he was going to be there!

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.

The power of Greyskull is happening on June 5, 2026 when Amazon MGM Studios’ and Mattel Films’ finally bring their live-action reboot of Masters of the Universe to theaters.

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.

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.Reviews have described “Challengers” as sexy and steamy, something O’Connor is still surprised he was chosen for.“If you were making the movie, you wouldn’t cast me,” O’Connor recalled telling screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes in an interview for The Wall Street Journal.

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains details about Challengers.

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.

A central scene in director Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers wasn’t in Justin Kuritzkes’ original script.

As an actress and executive producer, Zendaya is already a multi-hyphenate, but she’s not quite ready to climb into a director’s chair.  IndieWire reports (via The New York Times) that the “Challengers” star needs more time before she directs her first project. But when that day comes, Luca Guadagnino will say, “I told you so.” READ MORE: ‘Challengers’ Review: Zendaya Rules This Love Triangle “I’m overly conscious of everything else around me,” Zendaya told the publication in an interview for Guada’s new tennis drama, in theaters today.

Zendaya, Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor‘s steamy three-way Challengers kiss has been generating a lot of attention since the movie’s first trailer. However, the moment almost didn’t make it into the movie!

Zendaya is back on the big screen this weekend in her first-ever leading role for a feature film with the tennis movie Challengers.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor In order to deliver authenticity to every ace, volley, serve and rally, the stars of Luca Guadagnino‘s tennis drama “Challengers” each trained for up to six hours a day for three months on the court. In the film, two former friends and double partners Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor) and Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) face off in a challengers match years after falling out over their pursuit of Tashi Duncan (Zendaya). Brad Gilbert, tennis coach to Andy Murray and Coco Gauff, worked extensively with the actors to make sure they could convincingly become sports stars.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic “Challengers,” Luca Guadagnino’s enthralling sports opera about three great-looking tennis stars who trade partners, is the latest movie to feature that time-honored configuration, the love triangle. And make no mistake: This one is complicated. It’s no mere either/or thing.

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.

Tennis isn’t a contact sport but it can be brutal on the body, mind, emotions, and ego, especially at the elite pro level depicted so sharply in the ripping sports drama Challengers.A tennis movie with much more on its menu, the film, directed by Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name), credibly captures the fiercely combative pro tour, where, for those at the top, the payoff in riches and fame can be massive.For rising or journeyman players toiling on the sport’s minor league Challengers circuit, however, the struggle to train, travel, stay healthy and fit, and just pay bills bears few rewards greater than simply winning. And if you’re not winning, then what are you doing here?That’s the ice-cold attitude espoused by tennis diva Tashi Duncan, portrayed with impervious brashness by Zendaya.

Saltburn.”Like Emerald Fennell’s shapeshifting mystery, “Challengers” is, at once, artful, addictive and deceptive. The salivating viewer believes it’s one thing, becomes sure it’s another and then leaves with a different theory altogether.There are more similarities.

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.