Venice 2024: ‘Joker 2,’ Angelina Jolie’s ‘Maria,’ ‘Queer’ Starring Daniel Craig and Johnny Depp-Directed ‘Modì’ Eyed for Lineup (EXCLUSIVE) https://t.co/zLHCwqqvcx via @variety
— Steven Gaydos (@HighSierraMan) May 30, 2024
The upcoming Venice Film Festival is shaping up to be a star-studded affair with Lady Gaga, Joaquin Phoenix, Angelina Jolie, Daniel Craig, Johnny Depp, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Gal Gadot and Ana de Armas among top Hollywood talents likely to be launching high-profile titles from the Lido.
Though festival chief Alberto Barbera has yet to see several submitted works that are likely to make the cut, a clutch of globally buzzy movies have already secured a coveted Venice berth, though some of the more mainstream entries will probably be bowing out-of-competition.
“Joker 2: Folie à Deux,” Todd Phillips’ edgy musical sequel to his 2019 Golden Lion prizewinning “Joker,” starring Gaga and Phoenix, is a competition shoo-in, along with Pablo Larraín’s Maria Callas biopic “Maria,” starring Jolie in the title role.
Larraín’s previous two tragic female biopics — “Spencer” starring Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana and “Jackie” with Natalie Portman as Kennedy Onassis — both launched from the Lido.
Also believed to be locked into a Venice competition berth is Luca Guadagnino’s William S. Burroughs adaptation “Queer,” in which Daniel Craig plays the renowned counterculture author’s alter ego, an outcast American expat who lives in Mexico and is fighting a heroin addiction. “Outer Banks” star Drew Starkey also stars as a younger man with whom the expat becomes madly infatuated.
Last year, Guadagnino’s tennis love triangle movie “Challengers” had been set to open Venice out-of-competition, before being pulled from the festival due to promotional complications prompted by the SAG-AFTRA strike.
Also in the mix are Jon Watts-directed action comedy “Wolfs,” pairing Clooney and Pitt as two lone-wolf fixers forced to work together in covering up a high-profile crime, and Ron Howard’s survival thriller “Eden” starring Jude Law, Ana de Armas, Sydney Sweeney, Vanessa Kirby and Daniel Brühl. But both of these titles will probably end up outside the competition rather than vie for the Golden Lion.
Julian Schnabel’s crime mystery “In the Hand of Dante” – which is strongly tipped for a Lido competition berth – features a star-studded cast comprising Gal Gadot, Oscar Isaac, Jason Momoa, Gerard Butler, Al Pacino and Martin Scorsese playing an elderly sage who influences Dante Alighieri while he is writing “The Divine Comedy.” “Dante” is based on the eponymous book by Nick Tosches, which revolves around a handwritten manuscript of Dante Alighieri’s poem “The Divine Comedy” that is found in the Vatican library. The poem makes its way from a priest to a mob boss in New York City.
