Netflix has officially announced the release date for Pablo Larraín’s biopic Maria, featuring Angelina Jolie as the iconic opera singer Maria Callas. The film will start streaming on December 11, 2024, after a limited theatrical release in select US theaters on November 27.
Before the film’s release, Jolie will join Larraín for a post-screening Q&A at Alice Tully Hall in Manhattan during the New York Film Festival on September 29 and 30. The 122-minute film received an eight-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival on August 29 and will also be showcased at festivals in the Hamptons, London, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
Maria currently holds a 75% approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, marking the third and final installment in Larraín’s trilogy of films about influential women, following Jackie (2016) and Spencer (2021).
Jolie’s performance as Callas has already generated Academy Award buzz. The film portrays Callas as she rehearses for a performance that ultimately never occurs, with scenes being filmed by a crew led by Stranger Things star Kodi Smit-McPhee. Jolie, who had never sung on-screen before, underwent seven months of training with vocal coach Eric Vetro, whose notable clients include Ariana Grande and Shawn Mendes.
While Maria is primarily set in the 1970s, it also features a reimagining of Callas’ 1958 performance at a Paris gala broadcast via Eurovision. Two-time Oscar-nominated prosthetics designer Arjen Tuiten helped transform Jolie’s appearance, although she retains her own nose rather than adopting Callas’ more prominent features.
The cast includes Valeria Golino, Haluk Bilginer, Alba Rohrwacher, Pierfrancesco Favino, and Alessandro Bressanello. Callas, known for her exceptional vocal range, experienced a decline in her career due to various health issues and personal challenges, including her highly publicized affair with Aristotle Onassis.
Maria marks Jolie’s first acting role since the critically panned Eternals in 2021. She has also faced mixed reviews for her latest directorial effort, Without Blood, which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Read about On this day in 1977, opera diva Maria Callas dies in Paris aged 54