Overview

• Emma Stone leads Bugonia as a pharmaceutical CEO abducted by conspiracy believers, and she drew notice at the press conference by saying she believes in aliens.
• Yorgos Lanthimos framed Bugonia as a cautionary work about existential threats, pointing to conspiracy thinking, species loss, the U.S. opioid crisis and other social harms.
• Early critiques describe Bugonia as a violent, provocative entry in the director’s style and report it as an adaptation of Jang Joon-hwan’s Save the Green Planet!.
• Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly premiered without its star, as George Clooney missed the Venice presentation due to a reported sinus infection.
• Jay Kelly, a Netflix-backed comedy about an aging movie star, features Adam Sandler and Laura Dern, with a script co-written by Baumbach and Greta Gerwig.