Despite what the Taylor Swift industrial complex would have you believe, not everything is autofiction. Fans noticed some parallels between Challengers (written by Justin Kuritzkes) and Past Lives (written and directed by Celine Song, who is married to Kuritzkes). The girls are talking, theorizing, and conjuring a third. For example: “who is the sexy man who came into the lives of the writers of past lives and challengers and threatened to ruin their marriage….? and is he free on saturday night,” tweeted actor Sydney Battle, in jest. We’re all having tee-hees and ha-has, but Kuritzkes wants to make it very clear that the movie is “pure fantasy.” Speaking to IndieWire, the writer said the film came from watching Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka in 2018. “Challengers really came out of this desire to have information about the matches I was watching,” he said. “It was really something that I think a lot of people who watch tennis do, which is that you transpose a personality onto the player from these little crumbs that you’re given.” So it’s fanfic, if anything.
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