Challengers is the movie on everyone’s mind. It has everything: Zendaya, a bisexual tennis-centric love triangle, direction by Luca Guadagnino — did we mention Zendaya? But one behind-the-scenes fact has fans wondering if there’s more to the movie’s plot than meets the eye.
Challengers is written by Justin Kuritzkes, who is married to Celine Song — aka, the writer of last year’s Past Lives, a fan favorite from A24 that also happens to feature a love triangle. Not only that, both love triangles are comprised of two men and a woman. Though in Challengers, all three are tennis players, in Past Lives, the main character and her husband are both writers, just like Kuritzkes and Song.
The hidden connection immediately had the internet questioning everything. Could it be that both movies were based on some previous three-person relationship that Kuritzkes and Song experienced together?
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Incredible bit to write a movie about a threesome immediately after your wife writes Past Lives about you
— andrew 🦇 (@andrew12la) April 24, 2024
If that’s true, who’s their third? And more importantly, are they interested in writing a movie to complete the trilogy?
Who ever the 3rd guy is NEEDS to make a movie
— Darren Mcfaddie (@rollinmcfaddies) April 24, 2024
No, like we need the third side of the story I know it would be juicy
— vic (@_thatsovictoria) April 24, 2024
If Past Lives and Challengers are actually about the same relationship, they’re ripe for comparison. Past Lives is more tragic in tone, while Challengers is more of a fun romp — it used Rihanna’s “S&M” for all the trailers, after all. In other words, we “love it when two people feel completely differently about the same threesome,” as one X user put it.
Others are just in awe of Kuritzkes and Song’s relationship, in terms of both marriage and creativity. If only we could all find someone to write messy, semi-autobiographical movies with.
Challengers hits theaters everywhere this Friday, April 26.
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