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Venice Film Festival 2024: What to Watch For
The 81st edition of the Venice Film Festival kicks off Wednesday with the premiere of Tim Burton’s sequel “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” and starry fare will follow, like the sexually provocative Nicole Kidman film “Babygirl” and the George Clooney-Brad Pitt team-up “Wolfs.”
Here are four big questions we expect to be answered at the festival, which has long been considered the unofficial kickoff of Oscar season.
Will Joaquin Phoenix face the music?
A Venice debut for “Joker: Folie à Deux” has been presumed ever since the first “Joker” won the festival’s prestigious Golden Lion award five years ago. Can the sequel match that film’s success, which made more than a billion dollars at the box office and landed a best-actor Oscar for Joaquin Phoenix? The new film adds song-and-dance sequences and a potent co-star in Lady Gaga, so it’s clear that some big swings have been taken.
But the “Joker: Folie à Deux” news conference at Venice may be even more keenly awaited than the movie itself now that Phoenix has made headlines for dropping out of a Todd Haynes film just as it was about to start shooting. With the actor potentially facing legal action, will he be willing to take questions about the controversy from reporters? Or will he skip the conference altogether and call to mind Florence Pugh, who famously ditched her Venice press duties for “Don’t Worry Darling” two years ago amid a rumored feud with her director, Olivia Wilde?
Can ‘Queer’ and ‘Maria’ make a mark?
Two of Venice’s most anticipated titles are still looking for buyers: Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer,” an adaptation of the William S. Burroughs novel starring Daniel Craig, and Pablo Larraín’s “Maria,” featuring Angelina Jolie as the opera singer Maria Callas.
After the writers’ and actors’ strikes left many studios’ year-end slates looking awfully barren, you might have expected a bidding frenzy for two prestige films with major stars, but potential distributors that have screened the movies are taking a wait-and-see approach. Splashy premieres at Venice and almost-certain Oscar buzz could help make the sale.
How will Almodóvar play in English?
Ever since Pedro Almodóvar came to prominence in the 1980s, Hollywood has tried to poach the Spanish auteur for an English-language movie, hoping to entice him with projects like “Brokeback Mountain” and “The Paperboy.” Still, Almodóvar proved hard to woo, worrying whether he’d still have the same command with actors while working in an unfamiliar tongue. With a filmmaking vision so vivid, who’d want it watered down?
The director recently decided to test his mettle with two short films made in English, the Pedro Pascal-Ethan Hawke western “Strange Way of Life” and “The Human Voice,” which starred Tilda Swinton. Those efforts went well enough that at 74, Almodóvar has finally directed his first English-language feature, “The Room Next Door,” which premieres in Venice on Monday and stars Swinton and Julianne Moore as a pair of deeply intertwined New Yorkers.
What will this awards season look like?
The last two awards seasons were dominated by “Oppenheimer” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” juggernaut best-picture winners that swept practically every major prize along the way. So far, this year has not produced a movie in their mold, and insiders who’ve seen many coming fall films don’t expect any particular one to run the table.
In other words, this season is still very much up for grabs, and the movies about to debut at Venice have plenty of room to make a splash. Over the next few weeks, two more major festivals in Telluride, Colo., and Toronto will begin, debuting anticipated films like the papal thriller “Conclave,” the August Wilson drama “The Piano Lesson” and “Nightbitch,” starring Amy Adams. Will this season seem any more settled after the three festivals, when all but a handful of late arrivals will have screened? Stay tuned.
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