Wednesday Special: Toronto Breakdown / Late Breaking: Wonder Wheel at NYFF...But...

Welcome to a special Wednesday post of MTFB all about yesterday's announcement of films for the Toronto International Film Festival...

TORONTO BREAKDOWN

TIFF announced 47 titles yesterday 14 Galas and 33 Special Presentations.

As I have written before, parsing TIFF announcements is about a film's premiere status.  A quick reminder:

World Premiere and North American premiere means no Telluride unless someone has it wrong or is employing secrecy.  The last film I can recall breaking this taboo was Escobar: Paradise Lost in 2014 which TIFF had listed as a World Premiere but was a sneak preview at TFF.

Canadian Premiere usually means a Telluride play unless a film has already played somewhere else in the U.S. i.e. Sundance.

International Premiere means that a film has already and only played in its country of origin prior to a play at Toronto.

So, using those guidelines, I believe that we now know that the following films will play at TFF #44:

Battle of the Sexes
Darkest Hour
Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool
Downsizing
A Fantastic Woman
First They Killed My Father
Hostiles
Lady Bird
The Rider
The Shape of Water

It would appear that Battle of the Sexes, Lady Bird and Hostiles will all screen for the very first time at Telluride.

Films that will NOT be at Telluride:

Breathe
Mary Shelley
The Mountain Between Us
Stronger
Untouchables (the now untitled Bryan Cranston/Kevin Hart film)
BPM
Mudbone
Call Me By Your Name
The Current War
Disobedience
The Guardians
I, Tonya
The Square
Submergence
Suburbicon
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri
Victoria and Abdul

My personal take:  Very excited about Battle of the Sexes, Hostiles, Lady Bird, The Rider, Darkest Hour and The Shape of Water.

Most disappointed about: Suburbicon. Three Billboards, The Current War, BPM and mother!

Other notes:

1) Pretty clearly no Sundance/Telluride crossover unlike last year's Manchester by the Sea.  The two most likely players-Mudbone and Call Me By Your Name (as well as Novitiate) won't play T-ride.

2) For the fourth straight year the Cannes Palme d'Or winner will not be appearing at Telluride.  Ruben Ostlund's The Square will miss TFF #44.  The last Palme winner at TFF was Blue is the Warmest Color in 2013.

3) Couple of other films we're pretty sure will play Telluride that weren't mentioned yesterday: Wonderstruck and Loving Vincent.

4) Of the ten films that we are thinking were announced for TIFF that are likely to play TFF #44 three were on the latest Ten Bets list: Downsizing, The Battle of the Sexes and A Fantastic Woman. Also on the list of "other possibles": The Shape of Water and The Rider.

5) Of those ten films, four were on the original Ten Bets list at the end of June: A Fantastic Woman, The Battle of the Sexes, The Rider and Downsizing.

6) The only film nuked from last week's Ten Bets list by the TIFF news was The Current War and from the original Ten Bets list: BPM.


So, what excited you?  Disappointments?  Shoot me a comment or tweet at me on Twitter @Gort2.

Many, many films were not announced at all leaving them still in play for a Telluride slot (remember that I'm completely discounting Phantom Thread, The Papers and Blade Runner 2049).  Among them are:

Wonderstruck (which we think is at TFF because of its status announced when NYFF picked it)
Loving Vincent
Happy End
The Florida Project
Marshall
Wonder
Mary Magdalene
Death of Stalin
Loveless
Final Portrait
The Silent Man (which has a new title... Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House)
Visages/Villages
Spoor
Molly's Game
The Meyerowitz Stories
The Snowman
Lean on Pete
Redoubtable
L'amant Double
You Were Never Really Here
The Other Side of Hope
Our Souls at Night
Chappaquiddick
and...Woody Allen's Wonder Wheel...see below...





LATE BREAKING: WONDER WHEEL AT NYFF...BUT...

Woody Allen's Wonder Wheel was announced as the closing film for the New York Film Fest yesterday.  BUT...I can't find any story that covers that that mentions the film's premiere status. Seems to me that if it was a world premiere they'd be saying that.

Perhaps tomorrow's Venice announcement will clear that up.  Or subsequent Toronto announcements. Or a clarification from NYFF.

Or maybe...

Coverage from:

Deadline

The Hollywood Reporter

Gothmaist

More tomorrow...stay tuned.

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