It’s Sunday on the Lido with George Clooney and Brad Pitt cruising into town for the world premiere of Apple Original Film’s Wolfs. The movie premieres out of competition at the Venice Film Festival this evening after screening for the press this morning.
In between their trademark banter at the packed press conference, the pair also addressed weightier matters such as the upcoming U.S. elections and the contemporary film industry chestnut of streaming versus theatrical.
Clooney was quizzed about his decision to put his name to a letter asking President Joe Biden to step down as the presidential candidate in the upcoming elections.
“I’ve never been answered that question,” said Clooney, as the room broke into applause, seemingly for his involvement in the move to get Biden to move on.
“The person who should be applauded is the president who did the most selfless thing that anybody’s done since George Washington. So, all the machinations that got us there, none of that’s gonna be remembered and it shouldn’t be…
“What should be remembered is the selfless act of someone — you know, it’s very hard to let go of power, we know that, we’ve seen it all around the world — and for someone to say I think there’s a better way forward, all the credit goes to him, and that’s really the truth. All the rest of it will be long gone and forgotten and so I’m just very proud of where we are in the state of the world right now which I think many people are surprised by and I think we’re all very excited by the future.”
Written and directed by Jon Watts (Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Spider-Man: No Way Home), Wolfs follows Clooney as a professional fixer hired to cover up a high-profile crime. But when a second fixer (Pitt) shows up and the two “lone wolves” are forced to work together, they find their night spiraling out of control in ways that neither of them expected.
Starring alongside Clooney and Pitt are Amy Ryan, Austin Abrams and Poorna Jagannathan.
In December last year, Sony won the global theatrical distribution deal for the crime thriller with comedic elements. Then in August, Apple pivoted on its plan for Wolfs to have a wide theatrical release before it lands on Apple TV+. It instead will receive a limited theatrical release September 20, and then debut globally on Apple TV+ on September 27.
At the same time, Apple also made a deal with Watts to write, direct and produce a sequel vehicle for Clooney and Pitt.
Clooney and Pitt admitted they had been disappointed by the decision even if they still believed the rise of the streamers was a positive development overall.
“Yes, we wanted it to be released we’ve had some bumps along the way, that happens,” said Clooney “You know when I did Boys in the Boat we did it for MGM and then it ended being for Amazon and we didn’t get a foreign release at all which was a surprise. There are elements of this that we are figuring out… It is a bummer, of course it’s a bummer. On the other hand a lot of people are going to see the film and we are getting a release in a few hundred theaters, but, yeah, it would have been nicer to have a wide release.”
Wolfs is produced by Grant Heslov, Clooney, Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Watts, and Dianne McGunigle. Executive Producer is Michael Beugg.
