The Venice Film Festival unveiled its 2026 lineup this week, but several of the year’s most anticipated films were conspicuously absent. Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part Three,” Aaron Sorkin’s “The Social Reckoning,” David Fincher’s “The Adventures of Cliff Booth,” Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s “Digger,” and Luca Guadagnino’s “Artificial” had all circulated as potential Venice premieres, but festival director Alberto Barbera says their absences came down to unfinished films, production delays, and distributors reassessing the value of an expensive fall-festival launch.
Speaking to Variety following the lineup announcement, Barbera said Venice had pursued several of the missing films, beginning with “The Social Reckoning,” Sorkin’s companion piece to “The Social Network.” The movie had appeared frequently in Venice predictions, but additional shooting scheduled for August made a festival premiere impossible.
“The film isn’t finished because they have to reshoot some sequences in August,” Barbera explained, adding that it therefore would not be ready for Venice.
“The Social Reckoning” stars Jeremy Strong as Mark Zuckerberg, taking over the role played by Jesse Eisenberg in Fincher’s 2010 film. Mikey Madison plays Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, with Jeremy Allen White as Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz. Sony Pictures will release the film theatrically on October 9.
Fincher’s “The Adventures of Cliff Booth” came even closer. Barbera said the film, which once “seemed to be a sure thing” for Venice, suffered a production interruption that left the director without enough time to complete it for the festival.
Barbera may be referring to the film’s upcoming reshoots. Sources recently told The Playlist that “Cliff Booth” is undergoing additional photography in August, which probably explains the delay. Additionally, the film’s cinematographer, Erik Messerschmidt, has moved on to “The Batman: Part II” and likely won’t be available, which may also explain some of the logistical issues surrounding the reshoots.
Written by Quentin Tarantino, “The Adventures of Cliff Booth” brings Brad Pitt back as the stuntman and Hollywood fixer he played in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” a performance that earned Pitt his first acting Oscar. Fincher directing Tarantino’s screenplay immediately made the Netflix production one of the year’s biggest curiosities, but Venice will not be its launching pad.
Then there’s “Dune: Part Three,” which would have marked Villeneuve’s return to the festival where the first “Dune” premiered in 2021. Barbera said he had remained in constant contact with the filmmaker, but the effects-heavy sequel was still far from completion.
“We’re very far from finishing the film,” Villeneuve told Barbera. “The film will be released at Christmas, and we’ll be ready a little earlier.”
The third “Dune” film stars Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Florence Pugh, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jason Momoa, Josh Brolin, and Robert Pattinson and is currently scheduled to open theatrically on December 18.
“Digger,” meanwhile, represents a deliberate studio decision rather than a production delay. Barbera told The Hollywood Reporter that Iñárritu’s film was the only major studio production Venice had realistically hoped to land, but Warner Bros. immediately made clear that it intended to skip the fall festivals and release the film in early October.
“That’s their marketing strategy,” Barbera said. “There was no room to discuss it with them.”
Starring Tom Cruise, “Digger” marks Iñárritu’s first feature since 2022’s “BardoBardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths” and is positioned as both a major theatrical event and potential awards contender. Warner Bros.’ decision to bypass the fall festival circuit suggests the studio believes it can sell the movie without the cost—or risk—of a prolonged festival campaign.
“Artificial,” however, is the major exception among the missing titles. Unlike “Dune: Part Three,” “The Social Reckoning,” and “The Adventures of Cliff Booth,” Guadagnino’s film was finished and screened for Barbera.
“I saw the film. I love the movie. I think it’s a great, great movie,” he told THR.
The issue was Neon, which only recently acquired “Artificial” after Amazon MGM Studios dropped the film. Barbera said Neon CEO Tom Quinn views it as a strong Oscar contender but does not plan to give it a full commercial release until early 2027. The company intends to mount a limited December qualifying release before expanding the film next year.
Barbera suggested that Neon paid substantially for “Artificial” and now needs time to sell the film internationally. The distributor did not want to premiere it before securing those overseas deals, so it chose to skip the fall festivals entirely.
“They spent a lot of money to buy the film,” Barbera explained. “Now they need to sell it all over the world, and they don’t want [to premiere] the film before selling it everywhere.”
“It’s unfortunate because the film is really, really good,” he added.
“Artificial” dramatizes the turbulent 2023 weekend in which OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was removed and then reinstated by the company’s board. Andrew Garfield stars as Altman, with Yura Borisov playing OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever and Monica Barbaro portraying former chief technology officer Mira Murati.
Together, those absences contribute to a Venice lineup noticeably lighter on American studio and streamer productions than in recent years. Barbera nevertheless pushed back against the idea that Hollywood has permanently abandoned festivals, arguing that most of the expected films weren’t available.
“The problem isn’t that the studios chose not to bring their films to Venice,” he told THR. “The films simply aren’t finished.”
Still, Barbera acknowledged to Variety that the studios are “experiencing an identity crisis” as mergers, declining revenues, shifting production strategies, and increasingly difficult marketing conditions force companies to reconsider how they launch movies.
Traditional promotional tools are no longer as dependable, particularly for films without the built-in audience of a Cruise vehicle or major franchise. While a blockbuster can often generate awareness on its own, Barbera said studios are still searching for new ways to market less obvious commercial propositions.
For now, he views the lack of Hollywood movies as a temporary result of the production calendar rather than proof of a permanent festival retreat. But “Digger” and “Artificial” demonstrate that distributors are also making more calculated decisions about whether the attention generated by Venice is worth the cost, logistical demands, and potential risk of exposing a film months before its theatrical release.
The 83rd Venice Film Festival runs September 2 through September 12.
Born in Chile, raised in Canada, now living in Brooklyn, NY, Rodrigo Perez is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Playlist, which he launched in 2007. He has worked in entertainment journalism since 2000, including at MTV, and has written for SPIN, IndieWire, Pitchfork, Complex, Magnet, MuchMusic, and various music, film, and entertainment publications over the past two decades.
