Challengers (2024 Film)

Submission 2,887

About

Challengers is a 2024 American romantic sports drama film directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by Justin Kuritzkes that follows the story of Tashi (portrayed by Zendaya), a tennis star caught up in a messy love triangle with fellow athletes Art (Mike Faist) and Patrick (Josh O’Connor), which follows the trio from their teenage years into adulthood. The movie received positive reviews from critics and sparked a series of memes, photoshopped edits, fan edit videos and other memetic content on Twitter / X, Instagram and TikTok in 2024.

History

Challengers'^[1] production was announced on February 11th, 2022, by Deadline,^[2] who revealed Luca Guadagnino's next project alongside "an ensemble for his next film with Zendaya set and Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist." On June 20th, 2023, IGN^[3] posted the film's first trailer (shown below), which amassed over 800,000 views and 6,700 likes in a year.

"Potion Seller" Creator Justin Kuritzkes

As the first trailer of Challengers was revealed in June 2023, many netizens noticed that the reveal of the name of the film's writer, Justin Kuritzkes, was the creator of the Potion Seller meme. Upon the reveal, numerous social media users began posting about Kuritzkes' ties to the movie (example seen below).

Reception

After being delayed from its initial September 2023^[4] release date, Challengers was released in the United States by Amazon MGM Studios on April 26th, 2024. As of April 30th, 2024, Challengers accumulated a score of 83 on Metacritic^[7] based on 59 critics reviews.

Online Presence

Following the release of the trailer in June 2023, netizens started to speculate about the movie's plot and also posted jokes related to love triangle dynamics. For example, on July 16th, 2023, X^[5] user @karl_delo posted a picture of American singer Ariana Grande joined by Jonathan Bailey & Andrew Garfield at the Wimbledon Men's Singles Final paired with the caption "CHALLENGERS (2023)," which received roughly 7,400 likes and 660 reposts in a year (seen below, left).

On June 21st, X^[6] user @alanaslynchian posted a picture from the Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie paired with the caption "Challengers (2023)," which amassed more than 11,000 likes and 1,100 reposts in a year (seen below, right).

'Challe Ngers' Poster Controversy

On April 26th, 2024, the X^[8] page @filmstofilms_ posted a Challengers poster (shown below, left) dividing the movie's title in half to read "Challe Ngers," amassing more than 8,100 likes and 13,000 reposts in five days. The fake movie poster received backlash online, as some netizens alleged the poster alluded to the N-word, as X^[9] user @iloveiyosias joked on the same day, replying to the tweet with the caption "They called Zendaya a what??" The post received over 137,000 likes and 7,900 reposts in five days.

Three Tickets To Challengers, Please

"Three Tickets To Challengers, Please" is a phrasal template meme based on the Tickets to X, Please meme, in which users shared pictures of love triangle dynamics from other pieces of media.

For instance, on April 26th, 2024, X^[10] user @Carlos_Film posted a picture of the Twilight trio (shown below, left) accompanied by the caption “Three tickets to Challengers, please.” The post received more than 130 likes and 10 reposts in five days.

Challengers Poster Parodies

After Challengers premiered in theaters, photoshop parodies of the movie's poster started to be shared on X. For instance, on April 28th, 2024, X^[11] user @RhodeToLove photoshopped Emma Stone and Steve Carrel pictures over Zendaya's sunglass (shown below, left), which garnered over 6,600 likes and 295 reposts in three days.

On April 29th, X^[12] user @willfulchaos photoshopped Kristen Wig and Rose Byrne pictures on the Challengers poster (shown below, right), amassing more than 29,000 likes and 3,700 reposts in two days.