Zendaya's Movie 'Challengers' Pushes Back Release Date Due to SAG Strike, Cancels Venice Film Festival Premiere

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Rome-based sales agency True Colours has added Edoardo de Angelis’ “Comandante,” which opens the Venice Film Festival, to its slate. The film, which plays in the main competition section, stars Pierfrancesco Favino (“World War Z,” “Angels & Demons”).

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.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Berlin-based sales agent Pluto Film has boarded “Forever-Forever” (“Nazavzhdy-Nazavzhdy”), Ukrainian filmmaker Anna Buryachkova’s feature directing debut, ahead of its world premiere in Venice Film Festival’s Horizons Extra competition. After transferring from a downtown high school, Tonia (Alina Cheban) befriends a group of badass youngsters, trying to find protection from the people from her past and a place she truly belongs. They spend time together, roaming around Kyiv’s post-socialist suburbs, having fun and getting in trouble.

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.

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.

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.

Another 2023 theatrical release gets moved due to the SAG-AFTRA strike as MGM is pushing the Zendaya starring, Luca Guadagnino directed R-Rated tennis romance to April 26, 2024. The pic was scheduled to open stateside on Sept. 15, working off the heat of its Venice Film Festival opening night premiere. That world premiere is not happening now.

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.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Recently restored versions of William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist,” Terrence Malick’s “Days of Heaven” and Francis Ford Coppola’s “One From the Heart” feature in the Venice Classics section of the 80th Venice Film Festival. The lineup of recently restored films in Venice Classics, which is curated by the festival’s artistic director Alberto Barbera in collaboration with Federico Gironi, was unveiled on Friday. “The Exorcist” is screened, 50 years after it was produced by Warner Bros., alongside Disney’s “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm,” starring Shirley Temple and directed by “the prolific and sometimes brilliant” Allan Dwan, to mark the Hollywood studios’ 100th anniversaries.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The 80th Venice Film Festival has revealed its selection of projects for Venice Immersive, the XR-Extended Reality section of the festival, which runs Aug. 30 – Sept. 9. The program will include VR experience “Wallace & Gromit in the Grand Getaway” and a Fatboy Slim project. Venice Immersive is devoted to immersive media and includes all XR means of creative expression: 360° videos and XR works of any length, including installations and virtual worlds. The program, which will take place on the island of Lazzaretto Vecchio, will present 44 projects from 25 countries, and 24 works in the Worlds Gallery section. It will comprise: