Zendaya R-Rated Pic ‘Challengers’ From Luca Guadagnino Heads To Spring 2024 Due To Actors Strike

WARNING: POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD!

Zendaya is opening up about her steamy new movie Challengers.

Fans of Luca Guadagninio pricked up their ears when the director announced last year that his next film would be a movie about tennis. Guada and tennis? That doesn’t sound like it’d work on paper.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Rome’s Cinecittà Studios are in the midst of a radical overhaul that started in June 2021, when the government-owned facilities, headed by Nicola Maccanico — who is a former Warner Bros. and Sky Italia senior exec — secured a multi-million dollar loan provided by the European Union’s post-pandemic recovery fund to upgrade and expand the studios. Productions that recently set up camp on its iconic backlot, lured in part by Italy’s generous 40% cash-back tax credit, include Roland Emmerich’s gladiator series “Those About to Die,” which is currently shooting, and Luca Guadagnino’s recently wrapped William Burroughs adaptation “Queer” starring Daniel Craig.

Follow OK! on Threads here: https://www.threads.net/@ok_mag Gemma Owen has reportedly gotten close to polo player Tommy Severn in recent weeks, almost a year after she split up with her former beau Luca Bish. The Love Island star, who came second to Ekin-Su Culculoglu and Davide Sanclimenti in last year's summer series, has appeared fully focused on building her career since her break-up, which happened three months after leaving the villa. As well as running her own swimwear company OG Beachwear and becoming an ambassador for PrettyLittleThing, the 20 year old star, who is the eldest daughter of football legend Michael Owen, has long been a competitor in international dressage.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent An underhanded move by members of Italy’s right-wing government to try and take over the management of Rome’s Centro Sperimentale Film School is prompting an uproar by its students and a strong show of support from the country’s top directors. Earlier this week, students of the Centro Sperimentale — which is the oldest film school in the world, and among the finest — staged a demonstration in front of the country’s parliament just as a piece of legislation that would change the school’s management was swiftly being approved by a parliamentary committee.

EXCLUSIVE: Despite all the champagne popping at Warner Bros and Universal over the bananas box office success of Barbie and Oppenheimer, distribution executives continue to sweat over a possible lengthy SAG-AFTRA strike that is already blowing up the fall release calendar. We told you first last week this was going to happen. All major motion picture studios are assessing release-date changes the longer SAG-AFTRA strike goes on. Many want their stars to promote these films.

The Venice Film Festival on Tuesday released a star-studded and A-list heavy lineup of films that will debut at the 2023 Biennale, including the films vying for this year’s Golden Lion. This was done despite the ongoing SAG-AFTRA actors and WGA writers strike.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Venice Film Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera is in a good mood after Tuesday’s lineup announcement managed to stave off the impact of the SAG-AFTRA strike, something which could have been “devastating” to the event, he says. In the end, the only U.S. film that skipped the Lido is Luca Guadagnino’s Zendaya-starrer “Challengers,” which Barbera says was against Guadagnino’s wishes.

Refresh for latest…: Venice Film Festival chief Alberto Barbera is announcing the lineup for the event’s 80th edition this morning. We’ll be updating the list as the films are revealed, so check back for more below. You can also watch the livestream here.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The 80th Venice Film Festival is announcing its lineup on Tuesday from the Italian city, where artistic director Alberto Barbera and La Biennale president Roberto Cicutto are holding a press conference. The Lido’s only previously announced titles in the main selection are the opener, Italian director Edoardo De Angelis’ “Comandante” — a lavish anti-war epic featuring local star Pierfrancesco Favino as a heroic Sicilian World War II naval officer — and the closer, Netflix’s survival thriller “Society of the Snow” by Spanish filmmaker J.A. Bayona. “Comandante” replaced Luca Guadagnino’s sexy sports comedy “Challengers,” starring Zendaya, which had previously been set as the fest’s buzzy opener but was pulled due to promotional complications prompted by the SAG-AFTRA strike.

The Venice Film Festival will announce the lineup for its 80th edition Tuesday at 11 a.m. European time (3 a.m. PT/6 a.m. ET). Venice Artistic Director Alberto Barbera will be joined by Biennale President Roberto Cicutto to reveal this year’s titles.

The dual WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes aren’t stalling the 48th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival, which announced the first 60 feature films in what’s expected to be a 200-plus-title schedule. Last year counted some 260 full-length films.

The Venice Film Festival will close with the world premiere of J. A. Bayona’s Netflix survival thriller La Sociedad De La Nieve (Society Of The Snow).

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Spanish director J.A. Bayona’s “Society of the Snow,” a reconstruction of a 1972 plane crash in the Andes that forced survivors to take extreme measures, including cannibalism, has been set as the Venice Film Festival’s closing film. The deeply immersive Spanish-language saga is a Netflix original film shot in Andalusia’s Sierra Nevada, mainland Spain’s highest mountain range, using a 300-person crew. “Society of the Snow” will world premiere on the Lido out-of-competition on Sept. 9th. Its official screening will be held in the Palazzo del Cinema after the awards ceremony. In 1972 Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which had been chartered to bring Montevideo’s Old Christians Rugby Club team to Chile, crashed at an altitude of 11,712 feet in the Andes.  Of its 45 passengers – which consisted mostly of the rugby team, friends and family – 29 survived. Without food, the survivors, who belonged to Uruguay’s elite, were forced to eat the flesh of the deceased to stay alive. 19 survived an avalanche. 72 days after the crash, 16 finally made it out alive. 

Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers,” starring Zendaya, has been pulled from the Venice Film Festival, where it was to be the opening night film, due to the actors strike.

Fans are going to have to a wait a few more months before Zendaya‘s next movie hits theaters.

Bad news out of the Venice Film Festival: Variety reports that Luca Guadagnino‘s “Challengers” will no longer be the opening film on the Lido this year. What’s more, MGM/Amazon Studios have pushed back the tennis love triangle drama’s US theatrical release to next spring, too.

Zendaya tennis drama Challengers has become a high-profile casualty of the SAG-AFTRA strike with confirmation that its Venice Film Festival world premiere has been cancelled.

“TIFF is on,” beamed the Toronto International Film Festival CEO Cameron Bailey to Deadline, “Our dates are the same, the films are coming.”