Telluride’s Surprise Movie Sparks Industry Guessing Game As Studio Buyer Emerges; Update With A Winner? — The Dish — UPDATE 1.28PM PST: The rumor doing the rounds on social media and gathering steam in Telluride is that it’s a Nathan Fielder doc about imprisoned Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. Fielder is best known for HBO docucomedy series The Rehearsal and black comedy series The Curse with Emma Stone, Fielder and co-creator Benny Safdie. The first three eps of the latter showed at NYFF in 2023. No confirmation from fest, A24 or reps. All will be revealed soon enough. Screening kicks off 6.30pm local.
EARLIER EXCLUSIVE @ 7.04am PST: The identity of Telluride’s surprise movie playing later today has sparked a fun guessing game among industry and journalists. We can tell you that it’s an A24 joint, but the movie still remains a mystery.
From what we can glean from tight-lipped sources, the film project has a hybrid element to it, so part documentary. We’re told it has a long running time at close to three hours. And we get the impression it’s something A24 has bought recently for the world in a competitive situation, so not something that has been developed and produced by the studio. Answers on a postcard.
The 174-minute movie is due to be followed today by a Q&A. All electronic devices including “phones, smart watches, ear pods, smart glasses” will be bagged and locked via the Yondr system prior to entry in the Herzog theatre (Telluride’s largest venue), only to be unlocked when you leave. 
A project that we wondered about was Ethan Hawke’s three-hour Merle Haggard documentary/travelogue, Highway 99: A Double Album, which features music greats like the late Dolly Parton and Bob Dylan. But that movie actually debuted at Telluride last year so surely wouldn’t make sense as a genuine surprise.
A24’s comedy Goblin with Ken Branagh and Skyler Gisondo would have been a fun one but A24 has had that one on the slate for a while and we’re told it hasn’t even started shoot yet. Neither is it hybrid.
We’re told by sources it isn’t the Zac Efron movie Famous, which is still waiting for a release date on A24’s slate, and surely it wouldn’t be Ruben Ostlund’s The Entertainment System Is Down, which the filmmaker wants to take to Cannes and last we heard had plenty work still to do. Neither of those are hybrid, anyway.
The guessing game continues! Kudos to the festival for keeping the project under wraps in an age when so little stays a secret and genuine mystery is hard to come by. Not that all critics we’ve spoken to are thrilled given that time and schedules are so tight at these festivals. Bah humbug!
Editor’s note: The Dish is a regular column for Deadline journos to plant their flag in deals, hires and firings and industry developments before they’re fully baked. The column is inspired by Mike Fleming Jr’s longtime trade column of the same name.
Get our Breaking News Alerts and Keep your inbox happy.
Comments On Deadline Hollywood are monitored. So don't go off topic, don't impersonate anyone, and don't get your facts wrong.
Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() );