Center Court: Janus Metz’s Borg/McEnroe is 2017 TIFF Opener / Neon to Distribute

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It was one of the titles on our radar for when we were thinking of the fall festival line-ups, and now Janus Metz‘s sports drama (and fiction debut) is going to be center court at the 42nd Toronto International Film Fest. Starring Shia LaBeouf, Sverrir Gudnason and Stellan Skarsgård, perhaps the red carpet for Borg/McEnroe will also include the players themselves. A tidbit worth mentioning that hadn’t been announced before is that Tom Quinn & Tim League’s Neon is the U.S distributor for the title and have dated this as a 2018 release.

Gist: Borg/McEnroe tells the story of the epic rivalry between Swedish tennis legend Björn Borg (Sverrir Gudnason)
and his greatest adversary, the brash American John McEnroe (Shia LaBeouf), which came to a head during the 1980 Wimbledon Championships.

Worth Noting: One of the rare docu films to be included in Cannes Critics Week, Armadillo is one hell of a war is hell piece. This is Metz’s long awaited sophomore pic.

Do We Care?: The opening film of the fest was long associated as being a whimper item, but we consider this biopic a prestige item.

Eric Lavallée
Eric Lavalléehttps://www.ericlavallee.com
Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist, and critic at IONCINEMA.com, established in 2000. A regular at Sundance, Cannes, and Venice, Eric holds a BFA in film studies from the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013, he served on the narrative competition jury at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson’s "This Teacher" (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022, he was a New Flesh Juror for Best First Feature at the Fantasia International Film Festival. His top films for 2023 include The Zone of Interest (Glazer), Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (Pham Thien An), Totem (Lila Avilés), La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher), All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (Raven Jackson). He is a Golden Globes Voter.

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