Another day, another Venice Film Festival preview. This time Deadline tries to tackle the upcoming festival, set to take place from August 28th to September 9th. And yet, most of the stuff they tackle is Hollywood-centric, no mention of Reichardt, Zhao, Zeitlin, Kore-eda or the Safdies. Hell, they don’t even want to mention Woody Allen’s “Rainy Day in New York,” even though I have it under good authority that it is definitely premiering on the Lido.
They do note that Todd Phillips’ ‘Joker’ movie may very well be making an appearance on fall film festival circuit:
Premiering a comic book movie at a major film festival would be a bold move, but we hear that Joker is sitting out ComicCon in favor of a fall springboard which just might be Venice. Warner Bros unveiled footage of the Todd Phillips-directed DC origins story at both CinemaCon in April and CineEurope in June, exciting exhibitors and audiences while the trailer has been viewed over 52M times and counting.
As first mentioned on WoR, Roman Polanski’s latest film is being eyed by Venice head Alberto Barbera:
Another bold move, for the controversy, would be if Venice chief Alberto Barbera selects Roman Polanksi’s Dreyfus Affair drama, An Officer And A Spy. We hear this is potentially in the offing, if the filmmaker can edit the historical French-language pic in time. Louis Garrel, Emmanuelle Seigner, Jean Dujardin and Mathieu Amalric star in the Gaumont release. While this may seem foolhardy from a U.S. vantage-point, Polanski doesn’t face the same level of censure in Italy, a country which has taken a light touch approach to the MeToo movement.
A new Noah Baumbach movie is always cause for celebration:
Noah Baumbach’s currently untitled next work, which stars Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver (the latter also a Volpi Cup winner), may be hitting a fall festival, possibly both Venice and Telluride? If that were the case, the Netflix film, about which little has been revealed, would screen in the early days of the Italian festival before jetting to Colorado. David Heyman is producing.
The article goes on to note the obvious titles (if you read this site) that may make the jump to Venice such as Benedict Andrews’ “Against All Enemies,” Tom Harper’s “The Aeronauts,” James Gray’s “Ad Astra,” James Mangold’s “Ford v Ferrari,” Taika Waititi’s “Jojo Rabbit,” and Pablo Larrain’s “Ema.” Is it just me or are we going to be entering a very weak fall slate?
The ‘Smile’ franchise has a new director. David Bruckner, who made “The Night House” and the 2022 “Hellraiser” reboot, has been hired to direct “Smile 3” for Paramount.