Dear Gossips,
Sundance is just around the corner, and the indie darling film fest seems determined to make 2024 the year of Kristen Stewart. She has two films premiering at the fest, Love Me co-starring Steven Yeun, and Love Lies Bleeding from Saint Maud director Rose Glass. But that’s not all! She will also be honored with the Visionary Award at the fest’s opening night gala on January 18.
She’s being recognized for her “work as an uncompromising artist and contributions to the field of independent film”. Since Twilight wrapped up, the vast majority of her work has been in the indie realm, including Spencer, for which she was nominated for an Oscar, and Clouds of Sils Maria, for which she won a César Award.
But I would like to see her have her Batman moment. Post-Twilight, Robert Pattinson also made a number of independent films, it’s a surefire way to reset one’s career after commercial success in critically reviled films. But he has since reemerged in the mainstream with films like Tenet and The Batman, and while it’s NOT a competition—that is not what I am doing here—I would like to see, in general, what kind of studio movies KStew could command after reestablishing herself as a serious, and seriously talented, actor. The closest we’ve gotten is the queer holiday rom-com Happiest Season, which was produced by TriStar, a division of Sony Pictures. That movie is mostly good, but it’s still not high-budget, high-stakes studio fare.
And fine if she doesn’t want to do it, but I AM curious what a return to mainstream studio filmmaking would look like for her. Oscar baiting biopic? Comedy? Ensemble drama? You know what I’d love to see? Kristen Stewart in Knives Out 3. Dreams, dreams. It’ll be awhile, she’s firmly entrenched in indie cinema, thus the Sundance honor. And interestingly, you know what’s on her docket? A film called Sacramento, directed, co-written by, and starring Michael Angarano, her pre-Pattinson boyfriend. It would seem that, all these years later, they’ve come back around to friendship. Which means someone should probably pitch KStew and RPattz on a reunion film. The internet WOULD break if they reunited, even if just for a film.
Attached - KStew at a celebratory luncheon yesterday at the Mandarin Oriental Residences, Beverly Hills honoring Penelope Cruz's starring role in Michael Mann's Ferrari.
Live long and gossip,
Sarah