With the 2024 Cannes Film Festival now over, it’s time for cinephiles to look ahead to the year’s next premier festival: Venice, which runs from August 28-September 7. Festival chief Alberto Barbera won’t announce the lineup of the Venice’s 81st edition until the last week of July, but Variety reports he already has his eyes on a few buzzy titles. Among them? The much-anticipated sequel to the 2019 Golden Lion winner.
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Yes, expect Todd Phillips‘ upcoming “Joker: Folie á Deux” to have its world premiere in competition on the Lido later this year. All the pieces fit: “Joker” won Venice’s top prize five years ago; Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga bring star power to the festival’s red carpet; and a Venice premiere will froth up plenty of hype ahead of the film’s October 4 theatrical release. But will “Folie á Deux” win Phillips another Golden Lion? To be honest, it’s still a little shocking that “Joker” won back in 2019, but it was a relatively meager competition lineup that year.
And it’s safe to expect the next film of another director from the 2019 lineup to return to the Lido in 2024: Pablo Larraín. A Venice regular, Larraín has debuted his past four films at the festival, and five in total. So it’s a wise prediction that the Chilean director will return this year with “Maria,” Larraín’s latest biopic, this one about opera singer Maria Callas. And again, star power doesn’t hurt here either. Angelina Jolie stars as Callas in the upcoming film, her first acting role in three years. Her presence on the red carpet is exactly the thing that Barbera wants.
Luca Guadagnino‘s “Queer” is also a shoo-in for a Venice premiere. Guada, another Venice regular, would have premiered “Challengers” on the Lido last year if the SAG-AFTRA strike didn’t force Amazon MGM to pull the movie from the festival’s lineup. Like Larraín, Guadagnino has also premiered five of his films at Venice, so it makes sense that he’ll return with his William S. Burroughs adaptation. Daniel Craig stars in “Queer” as the author’s surrogate, an ex-pat living in 1940s Mexico City who develops an unhealthy fixation with Drew Starkey‘s young ex-Navy Man. Lesley Manville and Jason Schwartzman also star.
But several other titles from Venice non-regulars could make their way into the festival’s lineup come late July. Jon Watts‘ action comedy “Wolfs” with George Clooney and Brad Pitt feels like an obvious choice for Barbera, albeit not as a competition title. A Venice premiere ahead of its September 20 theatrical release could create a splash (and old friends Clooney and Pitt on the red carpet doesn’t hurt). Ron Howard‘s “Eden” also has the right star power for the festival even if it’s not really right for the main competition. Ana de Armas, Jude Law, Sydney Sweeney, Vanessa Kirby, and Daniel Brühl star in that one, a survival thriller set on the Galapagos Islands.
A star-studded movie more likely to compete for the Golden Lion is Julian Schnabel‘s “In The Hand Of Dante.” Gal Gadot, Oscar Isaac, Jason Momoa, Gerard Butler, Al Pacino, and Martin Scorsese star in the crime mystery, based on Nick Tosches‘ 2002 novel of the same name. The film follows two interweaving stories: Dante writing “The Divine Comedy” in 14th-century Italy, and the present-day authentification of a handwritten Dante manuscript circulating the black market. Franco Nero, Sabrina Impacciatore, and John Malkovich also star in Schnabel’s latest. Schnabel brought his last film, 2018’s “At Eternity’s Gate,” to Venice in 2018 (and three of his movies overall), so it’s likely he’ll be back this year, too.
And Johnny Depp, who was once attached to star in “In The Hand Of Dante,” may also make the Venice lineup. His biopic “Modí,” about Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani, will be ready in time for the festival, but Depp’s career remains stagnant after his and Amber Heard‘s 2022 defamation trial. It also doesn’t help that Depp’s previous directorial outing, 1997’s “The Brave,” was a critical and commercial disaster. Barbera may want to steer clear of “Modí,” then, which stars Riccardo Scamarcio as Modigliani, and Pacino as international art deal Maurice Gangnat.
So which of these films will make the cut for the 81st edition of the Venice Film Festival? It’s all speculation until the official lineup announcement happens in late July, but Phillips, Guada, Larraín, and Schnabel all feel like safe bets.
