Venice boss Alberto Barbera might have had a little too much Chianti before giving out interviews this afternoon.
Not only did Barbera name-drop a bunch of films he believes are going to Telluride, but he also managed to express his anger towards Universal for not screening Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans.”
That one got away from everyone. Everybody wanted to see it. But it seemed that the release date was too far ahead. Then we got this surprise announcement [that it’s going to Toronto]. I have to admit that, in this case, it was a bit unpleasant. All of us would have expected more clarity from Universal. You can say, ‘We are aiming for a different type of marketing campaign.’ But to let us know [ahead of the Toronto announcement] would not have been a bad thing. [Barbera laughs]. That said, we’ve worked very well with Universal on other films.
Then, he continued rambling his frustration in another interview, this one with Deadline, and even mentioned that “The Fabelmans” was going to Telluride:
“There was only one film we couldn’t see, which was the Spielberg film [The Fabelmans]. They decided to go domestic with Telluride. It was a film that all the fall festivals wanted to see but no-one got a chance to see it internationally other than Toronto.”
This got people convinced that Telluride stole TIFF’s world premiere of the Spielberg film. If you remember, last year Telluride pulled this trick off when they stole TIFF’s “Belfast” WP status.
I’m here to tell you, let’s please stop the speculation. A Telluride source has confirmed to me that “The Fabelmans” is not going to that festival. Barbera was probably (maybe) drunk. His interview rounds today were outlandish, but, I’ll admit it, very entertaining.