Zendaya Plays The Game By Her Own Rules In The New Challengers Trailer

One of the many infuriating side effects of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers letting the writers' and actors' guild strikes drag on as long as they did was that it denied us not one but two very exciting Zendaya vehicles in 2023. The multi-hyphenate is currently gearing up to reprise her role as Chani in "Dune: Part Two" (and for more than seven minutes this time!). Thankfully, however, we'll only have to wait a little under two months after that for her return to the big screen in Luca Guadagnino's steamy sports drama, "Challengers."

The first trailer immediately had us hooked on the "Call Me By Your Name" and "Bones and All" director's latest offering, which casts Zendaya as an up-and-coming Grand Slam tennis champion who ends up in a love triangle with two other players — played by "The Crown" star Josh O'Connor and Steven Spielberg's "West Side Story" breakout Mike Faist — after her career is derailed by a terrible injury. (I'm already getting flashbacks to the horrific moment where Mia Goth breaks her leg in Guadagnino's "Suspiria.") But in case you needed a little more convincing, or could just use more of Zendaya toying with white boys' feelings while waiting for her romance with Timothée Chalamet in the "Dune" sequel, you should watch the new "Challengers" trailer featured above.

An original, sexually charged drama that's geared towards adults, led by promising young actors, and directed by a filmmaker who's proven ever more fascinating with each new endeavor? "Challengers" is precisely the type of flick we movie aficionados have been begging studios to make more of for years ... which also means it will need all the help it can get at the box office. Luckily, that's one way in which the movie should actually benefit from being postponed from its original release date in 2023. It's now facing far lighter competition than it would have in its previous slot — and with audiences increasingly showing signs of franchise fatigue lately, that might just be enough to prevent "Challengers" from flying under the radar.

Guadagnino is directing "Challengers" from a script by Justin Kuritzkes, who is also penning the director's next project — a film adaptation of the William S. Burroughs novel "Queer" starring Daniel Craig — and is married to "Past Lives" filmmaker Celine Song (talk about an artistic power couple!). We'll see what he and Guadagnino have come up with when "Challengers" hits theaters on April 26, 2024.