George Clooney, Brad Pitt attend Wolfs premiere at Venice film festival

George Clooney and Brad Pitt added their considerable star power to the already glittering Venice Film Festival with the premiere of their comedic action caper, Wolfs.

Clooney and Pitt walked the Lido to the rapturous reception from fans who had crowded outside the Palazzo del Cinema. The two co-stars and real-life friends had previously lit up the screen together in the Ocean’s 11 trilogy as well as in a small but memorable scene in Burn After Reading.

At the premiere, Clooney donned a dapper classic tuxedo while Pitt, 60, wore an all-black ensemble and made it red carpet official with his 34-year-old girlfriend, Ines de Ramon. It was the first time the couple had appeared together at a public event in the two years they are rumoured to be seeing each other.

In Wolfs, Clooney and Pitt play two professional fixers who are separately called in to clean up a dead body that isn’t quite expired. The film received a five-minute standing ovation and Pitt was seen dancing to the closing credits song, Sade’s Smooth Operator.

Wolfs’ director Jon Watt missed the premiere because of a Covid diagnosis. Watt has already signed on to helm a Wolfs sequel although neither Pitt nor Clooney are confirmed yet for a follow-up.

Pitt’s attendance at Venice is on the heels of his ex-wife Angelina Jolie’s stop at the iconic film festival. Days earlier, Jolie had a triumphant premiere for her latest film, Maria, Pablo Larrain’s biopic of opera singer Maria Callas.

Jolie is already generating Oscar buzz for her performance. Larrain has previously made biopics of Jackie Kennedy (Jackie) and Princess Diana (Spencer), and both his leading ladies for those projects, Natalie Portman and Kirsten Stewart respectively, ended up being nominated for Academy Awards.

And while Wolfs and Maria are vastly different films, if anyone is keeping score in the Pitt-Jolie feud, Maria had an eight-minute standing ovation to Wolfs’ five minutes.

The 2024 Venice Film Festival has been a starrier affair than usual with a cavalcade of A-listers hitting the red carpet which also includes Cate Blanchett, Michael Keaton, Daniel Craig, Nicole Kidman, Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Tilda Swinton, Julianne Moore, Willem Dafoe, Antonio Banderas, Adrien Brody, Jude Law and Monica Bellucci.

Over the weekend, Richard Gere participated in a Venice masterclass in which he was shown the piano clip of himself and Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. He joked that they had “no chemistry” and revealed the “sexy scene” had been largely improvised.

Australian filmmakers Justin Kurzel and Peter Weir were also high-profile attendees. Kurzel premiered his film The Order, which drew a seven-minute standing ovation, while Weir (Picnic at Hanging Rock, Master and Commander, The Truman Show) was awarded the Venice Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.

The longest standing ovation for a Venice premiere so far goes to provocative American filmmaker Brady Corbet’s film The Brutalist, which clocked 13 minutes.