OSCAR #96 AND TFF #50
As I have mentioned over the last couple of weeks, with the end of the Oscar Parade for another year, we can begin to seriously beginning to look at possibilities for the lineup for TFF #50. One of the ways to do that is to gather information from pundits about what they suspect will be major films for the rest of the year. To that end, I have begun collecting that data.
Next Best Picture has up an early Oscar speculative list that includes many intriguing possibilities. I have culled that list down to these films based on the film's director and their history with Telluride or lack thereof, the film's distributor and their TFF history and the release dates for those that have been announced. Here, in alphabetical order are the films from the NBP list that seem to me to have the best shot at a spot at TFF #50. I have listed by title, director, distributor or producing studio and release date if known.
Blitz/Steve McQueen/Apple/TBD
The Color Purple/Blitz Bazawule/Warners/12/20/23
Fingernails/Christos Nikous/Apple/TBD
Foe/Garth Davis/Amazon/TBD
The Holdovers/Alexander Payne/Focus Features/11/10/23
The Killer/David Fincher/Netflix/11/10/23
Killers of the Flower Moon/Martin Scorsese/Apple/TBD
Lee/Ellem Kuras/No U.S. Distrib at present/TBD
Maestro/Bradley Cooper/Netflix/TBD
May December/Todd Haynes/No U.S. Distrib at present/TBD
Next Goal Wins/Taika Waititi/Searchlight/9/22/23
Nyad/J. Chin & E. Vasarhelyi/Netflix/TBD
Poor Things/Yorgos Lanthimos/Searchlight/TBD
Priscilla/Sofia Coppola/A24/TBD
Rustin/George C. Wolfe/Netflix/TBD
Saltburn/Emerald Fennell/Amazon/TBD
Shirley/John Ridley/Netflix/TBD
Untitled Bob Marley Film/Reinaldo Marcus Green/Paramount/1/12/24
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar/Wes Anderson/Netflix/TBD
And on the "Other Potential Contenders" list:
Nightbitch/Marielle Heller/Searchlight/Hulu/TBD
MAYBE GUADAGNINO...AND MAYBE NOT
Luca Guadagnino has had a couple of good TFF years with Bones and All and Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams appearing last year and his producing project The Truffle Hunters screening at TFF in 2020. His latest directorial project is the tennis drama Challengers starring Zendaya and Mike Faist and comes from MGM/UA Releasing (Amazon). I have ignored it as the film had an announced release date of August 11th.
That appears to have changed in the past few days. First notice I saw of it came from Erik Anderson's (Awards Watch) Twitter account:
As you can see, he was reporting the date had been changed to Sept. 15th, which, as you can see from the Tweet, puts it in a window to possibly play Venice and/or T-ride. It could also conceivably screen at Toronto during its opening days. The Sept. 15th date means no New York Fest.
Adding some fuel to the fire late Sunday was reporting from Jordan Ruimy and World of Reel suggesting that Challengers has secured a Venice bid. That reporting is here.
Ruimy's post also mentions that there are rumors that Guadagnino may be Venice's jury president this year which would almost certainly take it off the table for a TFF spot.
Stay tuned.
Challenger's IMDb Profile appears to confirm the new date. Here's the link to that.
EMAIL: mpgort@gmail.com
