Amazon Drops French Theatrical Release for Luca Guadagnino’s ‘Challengers’

Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers will bypass a theatrical run in France and go straight to Prime Video.

Amazon in a June 19 statement said the tennis-themed movie — which stars Zendaya, The Crown’s Josh O’Connor and West Side Story breakout Mike Faist — will launch exclusively in France on Prime Video as it skips a release in French theaters.

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The announcement came as Prime Video unveiled nine new original productions for the streaming platform in France, including Le Stupéfiant Noël des Silestone, Sulak and Tigres et Hyènes, and five new acquisitions, including the second season of Coeurs Noirs.

The decision to skip a French theatrical release follows the country introducing strict windowing regulations that require a 17-month period between a film’s theatrical release and its debut on a streaming platform in France. That compares to an average window of around 45 days between theatrical release and SVOD bow in most territories worldwide.

In an earlier decision, Disney decided to drop a French theatrical release for Strange World and put Don Hall’s animated action-adventure movie directly onto its streaming platform Disney+ in the territory, which led to protests by French exhibitors.

Challengers is produced by Amy Pascal and her Pascal Pictures banner as well as Guadagnino and Zendaya. The script, by playwright-singer-author Justin Kuritzkes, was featured on the 2021 Black List, a ranking of the best non-produced script in Hollywood. (A trailer released yesterday.)

According to the logline from MGM, the film centers on “Tashi, a tennis player turned coach, [who] 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.”

Zendaya is playing Tashi. Faist is the husband, and O’Connor is the former flame.

The decision to skip a French theatrical release for Challengers was first revealed in Variety.

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