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

VENICE, Italy — George Clooney and Brad Pitt returned to the Venice Film Festival on Sunday for the world premiere of “Wolfs.” Before hitting the red carpet, the Hollywood stars reflected on reuniting, the rise of streaming and Clooney’s New York Times op-ed urging President Biden to end his reelection bid. Asked about the impact of his piece, Clooney said he’d not yet had to answer that question. “The person who should be applauded is the president who did the most selfless thing anyone’s done since George Washington,” Clooney said. “All the machinations that got us there, none of that’s going to be remembered. And it shouldn’t be. What should be remembered is the selfless act.” Clooney continued: “It’s very hard to let go of power. We know that. We’ve seen that all around the world. For someone to say, I think there’s a better way forward? All credit goes to him.” Most of the discussion was focused on the film, however, an old school action thriller directed by Jon Watts, in which they play lone wolf fixers unhappy to have been hired for the same job to cover up a bloody mess involving a district attorney (played by Amy Ryan). The film will have a limited theatrical release, starting Sept. 20, before hitting Apple TV+ on Sept. 27. 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. Clooney confirmed that they did forfeit some of their salaries to guarantee a theatrical release and that it’s a “bummer” that it won’t be wider than a few hundred theaters. “We would have liked it, we wanted it. That’s why Brad and I gave some of our money back,” he said, adding that a report in the New York Times overestimated the dollar amount of their salaries by millions. Far from being anti-streaming, however, Clooney said that everyone is simply finding their way during this revolution. There are bumps and mistakes, but there’s also much more opportunities for actors, he said. “Streaming, we need it, our industry needs it,” Clooney said. “They also benefit from having films released … and we’re figuring it out, we haven’t gotten it figured out yet.” Producer and Plan B executive Jeremy Kliner, who has worked with Pitt for over 20 years, said that they make films believing in their shelf lives, and that they’re doing something worthwhile. Pitt added: “I think we’ll always be romantic about the theatrical experience but at the same time I love the existence of streamers … it’s a delicate balance. It’ll right itself.” 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. “In ‘Burn After Reading’ I got the extreme pleasure of shooting him in the face and I thought maybe we’d try it again 15 years later,” Clooney said with a laugh. The two teased one another about each other’s age and relevance, with Clooney joking that Pitt is 74 and lucky to be working at his age. (Clooney, for the record, is 63. Pitt is 60.) Pitt was waiting for a good idea to reunite with Clooney on screen and thought the idea of two cleaners who think they’re the best sounded fun. Their years of working together made their banter, and overlapping dialogue, natural to do. “As I get older, just working with the people that I just really enjoy spending time with has become really important to me,” Pitt said. When they got the script, they said Watts hadn’t specified who was playing which part so Pitt and Clooney got on the phone and figured it out for themselves. Pitt arrived 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. The film’s director, 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.” He was unable to speak about the film with his stars after testing positive for COVID-19. “He flew all the way here and then he got COVID,” Clooney said. “So now we’re all going to get it.”