Take it with a grain of salt, but Screendaily’s Venice lineup preview mentions titles which, we were told, are not supposed to be going to the Lido such as Assayas, Polanski, Winocour, Lou Ye. And yet, they seem fairly certain that Scorsese’s The Irishman, Dee Rees’ The Last Thing He Wanted, Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow, Greta Gerwig’s Little Women and The Safdies’ Uncut Gems are all not going to be ready for the fest.
Meanwhile, Variety are confirming that Ad Astra, Joker, Untitled Noah Baumbach, The Aeronauts and The Pope are all going to be part of the festivities.
Gray, Baumbach and Larrain seem to be the big names this year. Fairly lame, but I think it's more about this being a weak year than anything else. TIFF might, however, pull out all the stops this year, they seem dead-set at inserting more rules to secure World Premieres ... New boss Cameron Bailey is working very hard behind the scenes. I do wonder if this will result in Venice getting less "big name" titles.
Assayas, Scorsese, Safdies, Reichardt, Gerwig are probably not happening at Venice or, maybe, even TIFF/Telluride. Haynes I haven't heard anything about. Ang Lee's Gemini Man doesn't look like a festival movie to me. And so, that leaves us with Soderbergh which is a no-brainer for Venice, but maybe TIFF snatched that one up for themselves, who knows.
Here’s my updated list of Venice sure-things:
Ad Astra (James Gray)
Untitled Noah Baumbach (Noah Baumbach)
Ema (Pablo Larrain)
Joker (Todd Phillips)
The Aeronauts (Tom Harper)
Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello)
Gloria Mundi (Robert Guédiguian)
The Truth (Hirokazu kore-eda)
About Endlessness (Roy Andersson)
MalmKrog (Christian Puiu)
Qui Ridio io (Mario Martone)
The Salt of Tears (Philippe Garrel)
Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa)
A Rainy Day in New York (Woody Allen)
The Pope (Fernando Mereilles)
The Box (Lorenzo Vigos)
I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of looking forward to the “Michael” sequel. Whether Vantoine directs it or John Logan, it doesn’t matter—it’s an inevitable sh*tshow that will result from its making and release.