Angelina Jolie wrapped on Maria, Pablo Larrain’s Maria Callas bio-pic, last year. I believe the production got a SAG-AFTRA waiver during the strike. That means that the film is ready to premiere at some of the summer film festivals. It’s been long rumored that Maria will have its film festival debut in Venice. Three weeks ago, Variety exclusively reported that Maria and Joker 2 will both get splashy premieres in Venice. Now the Hollywood Reporter is suggesting that a terrible alternate scenario might play out: that Maria will premiere in Venice, but so will Wolfs, the action-comedy with Brad Pitt and George Clooney.

Running into an ex at a party can be awkward. But imagine if the party is the Venice Film Festival and the exes are Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. That potentially incendiary meet-cute could well happen, as both are starring in films that seem to be probable contenders in Italy.

Pitt’s movie, Wolfs, doesn’t sound much like festival fodder — it’s a buddy comedy about rival crime-scene “fixers” who are both called to remove the same dead body, directed by the guy who made Spider-Man: Far From Home, Jon Watts — except that Pitt’s buddy in the film is George Clooney, a part-time Italiano who gets lots of love in Venice.

Jolie, meanwhile, is starring in Maria, a drama about opera singer Maria Callas that couldn’t sound more like a festival flick if it were shot in Budapest by an experimental Chilean auteur (which it was: Pablo Larraín, a former judge on the Venice jury). The festival won’t announce its picks for weeks, but a veteran awards consultant tells THR there’s every reason to expect that Pitt and Jolie will both end up in La Serenissima. “If you’re the festival, you’d do everything you could to make that happen,” he says. “You’d have the whole world watching.”

Still, even if they both come to Italy, it doesn’t have to be awkward for the two stars. “The festival can keep them apart,” says the consultant. “You can bet both Pitt’s and Jolie’s people will make sure they never get near each other.”

[From THR]

“That potentially incendiary meet-cute” – they’re literally suing each other over Brad trying to attach a nondisclosure agreement to the sale of Jolie’s half of Chateau Miraval, an NDA which would have legally silenced her on Brad abusing Jolie and their children. But go off, I guess. As I said, I’m all but certain that Maria will premiere in Venice. That’s been known/prognistacated for weeks. But I will be so upset if the Venice Film Festival’s organizers try to bring Brad Pitt and George Clooney there to promote their dumbass movie. If it happens, it will be one of the most blatant stunts in film festival history. Second only to that Johnny Depp bullsh-t in Cannes last year.

The photos in this post are from 2010 – Angelina filmed The Tourist in Venice that year. Brad and the kids were there the whole time.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.