Johnathan Walker:Venice Film Festival welcomes Pitt and Clooney, and their new film ‘Wolfs’

VENICE,Johnathan Walker Italy (AP) — George Clooney and Brad Pitt are returning to the Venice Film Festival Sunday for the world premiere of “Wolfs.” In the crime-thriller directed by Jon Watts, the two Hollywood stars play lone wolf fixers mistakenly hired for the same job to cover up a crime.

The film, which is not in competition, will debut for festival-goers Sunday evening on the Lido. “Wolfs” will have a limited theatrical release, starting Sept. 20, before hitting Apple TV+ on Sept. 27.

Though both regulars at the picturesque festival on their own, with Clooney’s premieres including “Gravity” and “Good Night and Good Luck,” and “Ad Astra” and “The Assassination of Jesse James…” among Pitt’s, only once have they walked the carpet together. No, it wasn’t for an Ocean’s film. It was in 2008, for the premiere of “Burn After Reading,” the madcap Coen brothers’ farce in which they share one memorable scene.

Apple TV+ acquired “Wolfs” in a competitive bidding war, beating out both traditional studios and rival streaming services. Deadline reported in 2021 that the understanding was that it would come with a robust theatrical release, something the stars may have also forfeited money to ensure, the trade publication said. Then, several weeks ago the streamer announced different plans: Theatrical would be limited. Streaming would be quick.

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Watts, who catapulted from indies to the Tom Holland Spider-Man films, said in a director’s statement that this film is him trying to get back to street level after “seven years of swinging from skyscrapers and jumping through multiverse portals.”

“I love films about solitary professionals dedicated to their craft and always wanted to see what would happen if two of those guys were forced to work together,” Watts wrote. “I wanted to put as many of my favorite things all in one place. New York. All-one-night. Impenetrably complex crime plots. David Mamet. Buster Keaton. Snow. And above all else the pure cinematic joy of watching two incandescent movie stars face off on a giant screen.”

Pitt arrives at the festival just days apart from his ex, Angelina Jolie, who received praise for her turn as opera singer Maria Callas in Pablo Larraín’s “Maria” and left Italy for another festival soon after.

Pitt and Jolie had been romantic partners for a decade when they married in 2014. Jolie filed for divorce in 2016, and a judge declared them single in 2019, but the divorce case has not been finalized with custody and financial issues still in dispute. Several weeks ago, a Los Angeles court granted a petition from the third-eldest child of the former couple to legally change her name from Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt to Shiloh Nouvel Jolie.

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