This weekend’s big movie is Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers”. This is a thread where readers can chime in with their own thoughts on this highly stylized and entertaining film.
“Challengers” raked in $4 million on Friday. It’s headed towards a $14 million opening weekend. That’s a disappointment. The budget on the film is said to be $55 million. Zendaya, who stars, and is also a producer, pocketed a cool $10-15 million salary. Sorry to say, that’s too much to pay for an actress who hasn’t really proven her worth yet as a viable movie star. She’s all the rage on social media, but in the real world it’s a different story.
Even if you scratch off Zendaya’s high-paying salary, it doesn’t make much sense that “Challengers” would cost this much. Most of the scenes in the film are Tennis and hotel rooms. Fine, there’s a very memorable scene in an Applebees. That’s about it.
Rian Johnson and Edgar Wright are fans of the film The two directors took to social media to praise “Challengers.”
“So I loved loved LOVED ‘Challengers’ – didn’t know what to expect, and walked out of the theater totally buzzing,” Johnson tweeted. “It’s smart and sophisticated while still poppy and propulsive, basically ‘Design For Living’ as a kick-ass sports movie. Seriously IT’S SO GOOD.”
“Mio amico Luca Guadagnino has a grand slam* of a new movie finally hitting cinemas this week and it’s truly fantastic,” Wright wrote. “Go see the sexy, funny, and thrilling ‘Challengers,’ with the formidable trio of Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Faist all burning up the screen. You will enjoy it immensely! Almost as much as this photo of me looking like Luca’s 8 year old nephew. (*I know nothing about tennis).”
Meanwhile, Paul Schrader is complaining that, at 131 minutes, the film was just too damn-long …
Zendaya is a star, the movie is stylish and cool why does it need to last 131min? This is at its heart a 100min film. (Dargis references Design for Living in her NYT review, which was 91min long.) The studios would have never let this slight a story run so long--on the other hand, the studios aren't making this movie anymore.
I liked “Challengers,” which I reviewed on 04.18.24. It’s so well put together, there’s a ton of risk-taking in the narrative structure. If you strip it down to its core, it’s a very familiar story — call it, as Steven Gaydos so well put it, “Jules et Gym.” However, it includes Zendaya’s best movie performance and I absolutely love Josh O’Connor, in whatever he does — he’s actually better in Alice Rohrwacher’s recently released “La Chimera.”