The upcoming tennis movie ‘Challengers’ became the talk of the town when the trailer came out. The trailer was released around the same time when ‘Break Point’ Season 2 made its way to Netflix, which made the media draw several parallels. However, ‘Break Point’ is more of a docuseries which focuses on professional players while ‘Challengers’ is a fictionalized movie that has Hollywood stars in the cast.
As a result, the two tennis shows or films featured a lot of disparities. It was almost like comparing apples and oranges. Recently, one of the leads of ‘Challengers’ weighed in on this topic, explaining the motives behind making the movie. Interestingly, the Taylor Fritz camp also had a few strong words of their own in this regard.
The real challenge of ‘Challengers’
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‘Challengers’ is a compelling film with a $10,000,000 budget that looks into the lives of young ambitious tennis players. With Zendaya as the lead, the film is expected to be a success. However, the British actor, Josh O’Connor, feels that Zendaya’s presence is not the only reason for the buzz and intense traffic. According to him, the director of ‘Challengers’ emphasized the sensuous physicality of the sport for the upcoming love drama.
Josh O’Connor said via Empire Magazine, “The tennis is the sex. Those moments are so sexy. The film is dealing with the tension before and after. The sex they’re all desperate for is on the court.”
New trailer and US release date for Challengers starring Zendaya, Josh O'Connor and Mike Faist.#Zendaya #JoshOConnor pic.twitter.com/vTQcl7Zd4h
— cinemabang.com (@CinemabangCom) July 28, 2023
His other co-star, Mark Faist, went on to add that the director, Luca Guadagnino, had very little knowledge of the game prior to the shooting of the movie. Faist said, “I think he had only a vague interest in certain tennis specificities. He was more interested in the bodies and sweat.”
Those were some staggering revelations. The tennis community has been quite critical of the movie so far, especially the girlfriend of Taylor Fritz.
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Taylor Fritz’s girlfriend was not pleased with Challengers
Well, ‘not pleased’ would be an understatement to describe Morgan Riddle’s opinion of ‘Challengers’. When asked about her take on the movie, Taylor Fritz’s influencer girlfriend minced no words in speaking out about the director. Her comments were hyperbolic, but she categorized the movie as one of the worst movies ever. It seems like she did not like the fact that tennis wasn’t the primary subject of the movie, despite ‘Challengers’ being marketed as a ‘tennis movie’.
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What is your take on the movie ‘Challengers’? Are you excited about watching it? Do let us know in the comments.
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