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Challengers is a 2024 American romantic sports drama film directed by Luca Guadagnino from a screenplay by Justin Kuritzkes. It follows a professional tennis champion (Mike Faist) who plots a comeback with the help of his wife (Zendaya), a former tennis prodigy who retired after an injury, as he goes up against another player (Josh O'Connor), who also happens to be his former best friend and wife's former lover.
Delayed from a September 2023 release in response to the actors' strike, Challengers premiered in Sydney on March 26, 2024, and was released theatrically in the United States by Amazon MGM Studios on April 26, 2024. The film received positive reviews from critics and has grossed over $55 million worldwide.
Plot[]
Synopsis[]
In 2006, high schoolers and childhood best friends Patrick Zweig and Art Donaldson win the boys' junior doubles title at the US Open. Afterwards they meet Tashi Duncan, a highly lauded young tennis prospect to whom Patrick and Art are both attracted. The three meet in a hotel room, and in the ensuing encounter the two boys kiss both Tashi and each other, but Tashi ends the tryst before it escalates to sex. With Patrick and Art playing each other in the junior singles final the next day, Tashi says she will give her phone number to whichever wins. Patrick wins the match, and later signals to Art that he had sex with Tashi by placing the ball in the neck of his racket prior to serving – a tic of Art's.
Tashi and Art go on to play college tennis at Stanford University, while Patrick turns professional and begins a long-distance relationship with Tashi while on tour. Art privately suggests to Tashi that Patrick doesn't actually love her. When he visits Stanford, Patrick sees that Art is jealous, and playfully reassures him he cares for her. Patrick and Tashi fight when she gives him unsolicited tennis advice during sex and he says he views her as a peer, not his coach. In the match immediately after, which Patrick skips due to the fight, Tashi suffers a severe knee injury. Patrick returns to comfort Tashi, but she furiously demands he leave, with Art taking her side. Art aids Tashi in her recovery, but she is unsuccessful in resuming her tennis career.
A few years later, in 2009, Tashi reconnects with Art and becomes his coach, with the two beginning a romantic relationship. He reveals that he and Patrick have not spoken since Tashi's injury. In 2011, Tashi and Art are now engaged, and Art's career is on the rise. Tashi and Patrick run into each other at the Atlanta Open and have a one-night stand, which Art secretly notices.
In 2019, now married, Tashi and Art are a wealthy power couple with a young daughter Lily. Under Tashi's coaching, Art has become a top professional tennis player. He is one US Open title away from a Career Grand Slam, though he has been struggling after recovering from an injury. Tashi enters Art as a wild card in a Challenger event in New Rochelle, New York, in the hope he can boost his confidence and return to form by beating lower-level opponents. Patrick is now an unknown player living out of his car, scraping by on winnings from the lower circuits, and happens to also enter the New Rochelle event.
Starting at opposite ends of the seeding, Art and Patrick advance through the brackets until they find themselves facing each other in the final. The day before the match, Patrick attempts to reconnect with Art, but Art rejects Patrick, saying that his career is over and Art will be remembered in tennis history.
Sensing that Tashi is unhappy with Art and that Art is tired of playing, Patrick secretly asks Tashi to coach him to one last winning season, but she rejects him. The night before the final, Art informs Tashi he plans to retire at the end of the season whether he wins the Open or not, despite knowing that Tashi is vicariously living her tennis career through him. She responds with silence, causing Art to beg for reassurance that she will still love him. She half-heartedly claims she accepts him quitting, but Art refuses to believe this. To motivate him, Tashi tells Art that if he loses to Patrick, she will leave him. Afterward, Tashi secretly meets with Patrick to ask him to throw the match to Art. Patrick reluctantly agrees. The two then have sex inside his car.
The day of the final, Tashi watches from the crowd as Art and Patrick are matched. Patrick wins the first set, and Art wins the second. As Art takes the lead late in the final game, Patrick begins to throw the match through double faults. However, he stops short of losing and instead signals that he had slept with Tashi using Art's serve tic. Stunned, Art allows Patrick to score until they are again tied.
During the tie break, Art and Patrick furiously trade turns. The rally intensifies until both jump for a volley at the net. As Art begins to slam the ball, he collides with Patrick over the net, and the two tightly embrace. Tashi erupts from the stands.
Cast[]
- Zendaya as Tashi Duncan
- Josh O'Connor as Patrick Zweig
- Mike Faist as Art Donaldson
- Darnell Appling as New Rochelle Final Umpire
- AJ Lister as Lily Donaldson
- Nada Despotovich as Tashi's mother
- Naheem Garcia as Tashi's father
- Hailey Gates as Helen
- Jake Jensen as Finn Larsen
Production[]
Development[]
The script landed on The Black List, the annual list of the best unproduced scripts in Hollywood, in December 2021. In February 2022, it was announced that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had landed the film, with Luca Guadagnino directing and Zendaya, Josh O'Connor and Mike Faist set to star. Zendaya also served as a producer on the film. In a 2022 interview with Collider, Guadagnino cited Kuritzkes' screenplay, Amy Pascal, and Zendaya as inspirations for making the film.
Filming[]
Principal photography began on May 3, 2022, in Boston, where a casting call took place for local residents to audition to play tennis players, general extras, and stand-ins. In preparation for their roles, Zendaya, Faist, and O’Connor spent three months training with pro-tennis player-turned-coach Brad Gilbert. Gilbert was also a consultant on the film. Filming occurred in and around the Back Bay and East Boston neighborhoods. Sayombhu Mukdeeprom served as cinematographer. Jonathan Anderson, creative director of Spanish luxury brand Loewe, served as costume designer. Filming wrapped on June 26, 2022.
Post-production[]
Guadagnino visited Zendaya on the set of Dune: Part Two in order to complete ADR for Challengers. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross composed the film's score, having previously worked with Guadagnino on 2022's Bones and All. Post-production was completed by April 2023.
Marketing[]
A trailer was released on June 20, 2023. Zendaya revealed the film's poster on her Instagram at the new year 2024 along with its release date. She called the film "Codependency: The Movie" and O'Connor compared it to the 2007 comedy Superbad.
Music[]
Challengers (Original Score) is the soundtrack album composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for the 2024 film Challengers by Luca Guadagnino. It was digitally released by Milan Records on April 26, 2024, the same day as the film's theatrical release in the United States.
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross had previously worked with director Luca Guadagnino, scoring Guadagnino's 2022 film Bones and All. Guadagnino approached the pair to score Challengers by sending them an email that read, "Do you want to be on my next film? It’s going to be super sexy." Guadagnino wanted "very loud techno music" for the film, taking inspiration from Berlin techno and '90s rave music. The end result was intended to amplify the pace and high-stakes nature of the film.
Before the film and soundtrack's release, Reznor and Ross approached German producer Boys Noize about creating a remix album for the film's score. Initially, Boys Noize was hesitant about changing Reznor and Ross's original work too much, only making minor edits, but the pair encouraged him to be more experimental. He had not seen the film or a trailer until the remix album was completed. The remix album was released on April 12, 2024, two weeks before the official soundtrack album was released.
Release[]
Challengers premiered in Sydney, Australia on March 26, 2024, followed by premieres in Paris, London and at the Westwood Village Theater in Los Angeles, the latter of which had tennis player Venus Williams in attendance. It was released in theaters and IMAX in the United States and Canada by Amazon MGM Studios on April 26, 2024, the same month as the centennial anniversary of the founding of MGM on April 17.
The film was previously set to be released on September 15, 2023, and before that August 11, 2023. The film was also scheduled to have its world premiere as the opening film of the 80th Venice International Film Festival, but was delayed and pulled out from the festival by Amazon MGM Studios due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike at the time.
Warner Bros. Pictures serves as the film's international distributor. Although the film was initially set for a direct-to-streaming release on Amazon Prime Video in France instead of a theatrical release, the decision was reversed in January 2024, meaning the film would start streaming on the service 17 months after its initial theatrical release. The film was released there on April 24, 2024, two days before its release in the United States, although a spokesperson for Warner Bros. Discovery initially denied this, stating the film had not been dated for a French theatrical release yet.
Reception[]
Critical response[]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 89% of 298 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.1/10. The website's consensus reads: "With its trio of outstanding performers volleying their star power back and forth without ever dropping the ball, Challengers is a kinetic and sexy romp at court." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 82 out of 100, based on 62 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, while those polled by PostTrak gave it a 77% overall positive score, with 59% saying they would definitely recommend it.
Box Office[]
As of May 7, 2024, Challengers has grossed $31.5 million in the United States and Canada and $23 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $54.5 million.
In the United States and Canada, Challengers was released alongside Boy Kills World and Unsung Hero, and was projected to gross $12–15 million from 3,477 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $6.2 million on its first day, including $1.9 million in Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $15 million, topping the box office and marking the best domestic opening weekend of Guadagnino's career and of Zendaya's for a non-IP film. In its second weekend the film made $7.9 million (a drop of 49%), finishing second behind newcomer The Fall Guy and the re-release of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.
Soundtrack[]
Original score[]
Ty Burr of The Washington Post called the soundtrack "one of [Reznor and Ross's] best to date." Mireia Mullor of Digital Spy called the score "phenomenal," while Robbie Collin of The Telegraph called it "counterintuitively perfect." Max Weiss of Baltimore called the score a "standout," writing, "It's mostly fast-paced electronica, which disrupts and propels the action at unexpected moments. It has a freneticism with fuels the film."
Coleman Spilde of The Daily Beast wrote, "Such euphoric filmmaking is enhanced by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' intoxicating, synth-heavy score, which asserts itself as an indispensable part of the film. In Challengers, the music acts as punctuation, both periods and ellipses." Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote that the score "[captures] the electric heartbeat of the movie." Tim Grierson of Screen Daily wrote "Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross [concocted] a techno-heavy score that lends the matches a dance-party urgency that is both witty and invigorating."
Maureen Lee Lenker of Entertainment Weekly wrote, "[Reznor and Ross] craft a pulsating, synth-filled composition that ratchets up the tension until it's taut as the strings of a racquet. It's as if the U.S. Open decided to use sonic riffs from Miami Vice as a theme song. The electronic, staccato rhythm mimics the rapid back-and-forth of tennis while also catapulting us into a sound that is inherently sexy in the ways it evokes the hypnotic trance of a dance club."
Liz Shannon Miller of Consequence wrote, "Propelling the on-court action is Reznor and Ross's score, bringing a level of bombast to the sports action that at times threatens to overwhelm the action, without ever actually proving distracting." Angelica Jade Bastién of Vulture wrote that the score "lends the film a tense propulsion that the storytelling itself desperately lacks." Caryn James of BBC wrote, "One of the best surprises turns out to be the soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, a propulsive techno score that does a lot of the work to keep the tennis scenes moving."
Valerie Complex of Deadline wrote, "Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' score, typically a highlight, feels oddly juxtaposed against the film's visual and emotional landscape with its '80s synth-pop elements. At times, it enhances the scenes' emotional depth, but more often it distracts, undermining the subtlety of the performances and the intimacy of certain moments."
Mixed[]
Paolo Ragusa of Consequence called the remix album "astounding" and wrote, "Dance music at its core is built from what came before; it is meant to be extracted and expanded, remixed and recontexualized. A film score is not usually the subject of such chopping and screwing, but if anyone was going to do it and absolutely nail it, it's Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, and Boys Noize."
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
References[]
External Links[]
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