If there is one thing I have learned over the years, it is that any intuition I may have, Maria De Filippi had it first and better. Her instinct in understanding what the public wants is a quality that even her fiercest detractors recognize but, and she knows this too, to stay on top of the wave, intuition alone is not enough: you also need to know how to read society, how it changes, how and if it evolves and therefore in which direction the public’s tastes are going (and consequently advertising revenue).

And what Maria De Filippi understood many years ago is that Western society is aging but at the same time the expectation of a healthy life is getting longer and with it the desire to travel, discover, fall in love is no longer just the prerogative of young people but also of those who are getting on in years. Thanks to the progress of science and medicine, a seventy-year-old today has a good chance of enjoying life, a woman in menopause can be very attractive and want to go out and have fun, and all this favors meetings and the creation of new couples. Thus was born the Over Throne first as a rib of the lucky one Men & Women to the point of supplanting in the hearts of Maria De Filippi’s audience the stories with boys and girls as protagonists: the dynamics are more intriguing and fun, the stories are more exciting, perhaps also because of the message of “second chance” of the Over Throne, which represents the perfect consoling happy ending for the audience at home.

For those like me who eagerly follow Maria De Filippi’s programs, it is therefore not surprising the welcome received by the most anticipated couple at the Venice Film Festival, namely the one formed by Monica Bellucci and Tim Burton.

The two achieved success in the nineties, he as the enfant terrible of Hollywood, she as the incarnation of Mediterranean eroticism in Europe. Both were linked for a long time to Helena Bonham Carter and Vincent Cassel, respectively, unions of love but also artistic partnerships that filled the pages of the magazines and made fans dream also thanks to their photogenic nature. The couples could not stand the weight of time and Bellucci and Burton returned to being single when in another era they would have been called Sunset Boulevard. And instead their meeting coincided for both of them with a new phase in their artistic lives. The two met in 2006 in Cannes but the spark would ignite in 2022 when Bellucci gave Burton the Lifetime Achievement Award during the Lumiere Film Festival in Lyon, France (which rightly celebrated the success of the couple on its social media).

The first rumors about their relationship started circulating in February of the following year, then came the paparazzi photos in which the two appeared in love and deliciously coordinated. To put it as if we were still young: they’re matching each other freaks.

Monica Bellucci was the first to speak about their love: “What I can say is that I’m happy to have met this man. It’s one of those encounters that rarely happen in life. I met the man and I fell in love, now I’ve also met the director and another adventure has begun”. Bellucci was referring to the sequel to Beetlejuice that Burton was working on at the time, also thanks to the success ofWednesday on Netflix.

The couple arrived in Venice to inaugurate the festival with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice the sequel to the successful 1988 film in which the original cast mixes with new performers including Monica Bellucci, who here plays the role of a fascinating exhibition. Burton told the press that he had rediscovered the enthusiasm for making films thanks to this film, a very personal film that reconciled him with his work after a period of crisis. Next to him, a radiant Bellucci thanked her partner and director for involving her in this film. The first, presumably, of an artistic partnership that will enrich their union.

Monica Bellucci and Tim Burton have shown themselves to the public and the press with renewed enthusiasm and overwhelming energy. Their story tells us (if we needed to be reminded) that there is always time to fall in love and that the joy of living does not have an expiration date: take note.