Luca Guadagnino's Challengers Cast Adds Zendaya & More

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Luca Guadagnino's Challengers Cast Adds Zendaya & More

Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Faist are all in final negotiations to join the cast of Luca Guadagnino’s film Challengers.

According to a report from Deadline, all three stars will appear in the film that MGM recently acquired the rights to. Guadagnino, Zendaya, and Rachel O’Connor of Pascal Pictures will also act as producers on the film, which features a script written by Justin Kuritzkes.

Challengers follows the story of Tashi, a tennis player turned coach who transforms her husband Art from a novice tennis player into a world champion. “To jolt him out of his recent losing streak,” reads the logline for the film. “She makes him play a “Challenger” event — close to the lowest level of tournament on the pro tour — where he finds himself standing across the net from the once-promising, now burnt-out Patrick: his former best friend and Tashi’s former boyfriend.”

For Guadagnino, this will be his next film following 2018’s Suspiria, a film inspired by Dario Argento’s original 1977 film. Prior to that, Guadagnino rose to mainstream fame with 2017’s Call Me by Your Name, a film starring Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet. That film went on to be nominated for four Academy Awards — including Best Picture — and taking home the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Zendaya’s star continues to rise, as the superstar recently starred in the box office smash hit Spider-Man: No Way Home, as well as 2021’s hit film Dune, which just recently earned 10 nominations for the Academy Awards. On the television side, Zendaya also stars in HBO’s Euphoria, for which she has already won an Emmy for in 2020.

Josh O’Connor is perhaps best known for his role as Prince Charles in Netflix’s The Crown, a role for which he took home an Emmy for in 2020. Mike Faist most recently starred in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, and has also been a mainstay in the world of Broadway, having earned a Tony Award nomination for his role as Connor Murphy in Dear Evan Hansen.