George Clooney Applauds Joe Biden For Stepping Down & Addresses Apple’s Move To Limited Theatrical Release For ‘Wolfs’: “It’s A Bummer” – Venice

Melanie Goodfellow and Nancy Tartaglione
·7 min read
30

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.

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Clooney was quizzed about his op-ed in The New York Time in July asking President Joe Biden to step down as the presidential candidate in the upcoming elections.

“I’ve never had to answer that question, so I suppose I’ll do it here,” 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.”

He also noted that he and Pitt had even given back of part of their salary to make it happen, clarifying reports in The New York Times at the same time on how much they had been paid for the roles.

“By the way, there’s a really good reporter, Nicole Sperling for the New York Times, she wrote an interesting article about it and whatever her source was for our salary it’s millions and millions and millions of dollars less than what was reported,” he said.

“I am only saying that because I think it’s bad for our industry if people think that is the standard bearer for salaries.”

Speaking more generally about the ongoing streamer-theatrical debate, Clooney added that both distribution platforms were mutually beneficially.

“Streaming is, we need it, our industry needs it… But they also benefit from having films released and that’s why Brad and I we’re working so hard to try and get this released — and we’re figuring it out, we haven(t got it all figured out yet. This is a revolution in our industry and we need Apple and Amazon and they actually need distributors, they need to have Sony or warner bros who actually have been doing this for 100 years. So, we’re figuring this out. What I do think I see is a lot more work for actors. We’re having to curate it differently and we’re gonna figure that out.”

Clooney and Pitt were joined on the press conference podium by co-stars Austin Abrams and Amy Ryan as well as Plan B Entertainment co-president Jeremy Kleiner with CAA boss Bryan Lourd also in the room.

One surprising no-show, however, was director Jon Watts, prompting some journalists in the room to question among themselves whether he had side-stepped the Venice launch due to his displeasure at the changed plans for theatrical.

Clooney shut this down at the start of the press conference, however, by announcing that the director was sick with Covid-19.

“He flew all the way here and he got Covid and he’s now in bed… and we’re now probably going to get Covid,” he said.

Wolfs continues a 23-year onscreen collaboration between Clooney and Pitt and is their seventh movie in which they both feature in the cast credits spanning Ocean’s Eleven (2001); Clooney’s directorial debut Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), in which Pitt had a cameo role; Ocean’s Twelve (2004); Ocean’s Thirteen (2007); Burn After Reading (2008) and small voice roles in IF (2024).

Pitt said they had been looking for the right project to come along for them to reunite on screen again.

“We kind of figured there’s gotta be a good reason to get back in a film together, something we feel like we could build upon what we’ve done before. But also, I gotta say, as I get older, working with the people that I just really enjoy spending time with has really become important to me,” he said.

“We liked the idea and (Jon) wrote this first draft and I read it and I said great, and George read it and he said great. It’s never happened where someone presents you with an idea and you get a first draft of the script and that’s what you end up shooting.”

Wolfs is produced by Grant Heslov, Clooney, Pitt, Dede Gardner, Kleiner, Watts, and Dianne McGunigle. Executive Producer is Michael Beugg.

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