Luca Guadagnino Sets ‘Challengers’ as Next Movie, Taps Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Faist to Star
Luca Guadagnino won’t stop adding projects to his to-do list.
The latest one, which seems to be the next project he’ll be tackling, is called Challengers, and according to Deadline, will be led by Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Faist. Justin Kuritzkes wrote the script, with MGM distributing after they recently bought the rights to the package. Amy Pascal, Guadagnino, Zendaya, and Rachel O’Connor are producing.
From Deadline:
The story follows Tashi, a tennis player turned coach, has taken her husband, Art, and transformed him from a mediocre player into a world-famous grand slam champion. To jolt him out of his recent losing streak, she makes him play a “Challenger” event — close to the lowest level of tournament on the pro tour — where he finds himself standing across the net from the once-promising, now burnt-out Patrick: his former best friend and Tashi’s former boyfriend.
While Guadagnino has been very busy, even attaching himself to direct an Audrey Hepburn biopic starring Rooney Mara, Deadline says he will be shooting this movie in March. Zendaya will be playing Tashi, after she was enamored by the pitch and the combo started circulating around several studios, with MGM ultimately winning. While the deal was being sorted out, O’Connor and Faist signed on to the project.
Faist’s name may sound familiar to some of our readers, as he played Riff in the most recent West Side Story, which will compete in seven Oscar categories, including Best Picture and Best Director. O’Connor is mostly known for playing Prince Charles in Netflix’s The Crown.
Guadagnino is currently in post-production of his new movie, Bones and All, starring Timothée Chalamet. If he can make it in time, Challengers could be a good Oscar contender next year, though it’s up to MGM to decide that. After all, 2023’s Oscars are going to be very tough, with new movies from Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, David O’Russell, Damien Chazelle, and many others, eyeing an Oscar campaign. Guadagnino could wait until late 2023 to release Challengers, and start screening it during next year’s Sundance Film Festival — that was the strategy followed by Call Me By Your Name, which ultimately worked out for them.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
