After months of undisputed dominance, Top Gun: Maverick was ousted from the Italian box-office podium this week by the three new releases: Minions 2, Bullet Train – an action comedy starring Brad Pitt – and Crimes of the Future, David Cronenberg’s directorial comeback.

With another €3.529.580 grossed, Universal Pictures’ animated film is at the top of the chart, while Bullet Train and Crimes of the Future have to settle for second and third position, respectively, with €707.160 and €242.380, followed by Nope, which sits at #3 with a gross of €202.218.

Cronenberg’s return has been celebrated in Italy with a “Cronenberg marathon” hosted in different cinemas across the country.

Top Gun Maverick was released on streaming just this week and nevertheless there are those who do not give up seeing it inside a movie theater: the Tom Cruise sequel, despite being in theaters since may, has brought in another €185.329, bringing the total revenues in Italy to 12,5 million euros. Sixth position for Thor: Love and Thunder (€158.007 and a total of 10,6 million) coming to Disney Plus next September 8. The other new release, Men, raked in only €102.499 since its release on August 24^th. 

This week, however, the biggest attentions, when it comes to cinema, are all turned to the Venice Lido, where the 79th edition of the Venice Film Festival is hosted from September 31 to 10. After two years of restrictrions due to the Covid pandemic, this year the Festival’s theaters will once again have full capacity (in the last two editions it was halved), with masks no longer mandatory, and the red carpet will be finally “free” of the anti-bubble wall.

Competing for the Golden Lion are as many as five Italian works. Gianni Amelio presents Il signore delle formiche (then in Italian theaters Sept. 8) with Luigi Lo Cascio and Elio Germano; Luca Guadagnino returns to work with actor Timothée Chalamet for the cannibal drama Bones and AllL’immensità with Penélope CruzChiara, and Andrea Pallaoro directs Patricia Clarkson with Monica. Paolo Virzì brings out-of-competition Siccità, a dramatic and perhaps prophetic glimpse into the planet’s water resources, while the Horizons section ranges from the biopic Vera (about cult 1990s actress Vera Gemma) to showgirl-singer Elodie’s debut in Pippo Mezzapesa’s drama Ti mangio il cuore. The Extra section focuses on Carolina Cavalli’s debut feature Amanda (out Oct. 13 in theaters) and Notte Fantasma with Edoardo Pesce.