At last, Olivia Wilde's sophomore directorial outing Don't Worry Darling has seen the light of day, premiering at the Venice Film Festival over the weekend.
But the behind-the-scenes drama around the film has only gotten messier.
Yesterday, social media practically ground to a halt over several incidents regarding the film that occurred in Venice, but the one that drew the most attention was a moment when Harry Styles appeared to spit on costar Chris Pine at the film's screening.
The footage was just inconclusive enough to practically turn the whole thing into the second coming of the Zapruder Film, with folks poring over various angles from the event to try to figure out what happened.
But a sleuth slowed down the footage and it appears the whole thing was a misunderstanding.
See the slowed-down version below.
There doesn't appear to be any spittle flying from Styles' mouth, so it seems the whole thing was a mistake.
But in the original footage, it did sort of appear as if Styles might have hocked a loogie directly into Pine's lap.
With his lips pursed as he sat down and the timing of Pine looking down into his lap, it seemed like something might have landed there.
Add in Pine's non-plussed reaction, and it seemed to have all the trappings of yet another scandal for this very scandal-plagued film.
But another angle seemed to show absolutely nothing happening in the same moment.
Fans quickly came up with alternate theories—Pine realized his sunglasses had fallen into his lap after wondering where they had been.
Which seems plausible enough, given how out of it Pine has seemed while in Venice. Perhaps it's the jet lag?
In any case, you'd be forgive for assuming yet another scandal had erupted surrounding Don't Worry Darling.
The film has been plagued by drama since it was first announced, from Wilde's ongoing custody battle with Jason Sudeikis nearly upstaging her at CinemaCon, to her and former star Shia LaBeouf's back-and-forth about whether he quit the film or was fired.
But at least this one story of drama seems to have turned out to be true—but not before it generated all sorts of talk on Twitter.
Through his representative, Pine confirmed the spit take never happened, calling it "a complete fabrication."
Aw, well, the drama was fun while it lasted.
