The Venice Film Festival has announced that "Everest" will open the annual festival.

The film directed by Baltasar Kormakur ("2 Guns," "Contraband") stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Jason Clarke, Josh Brolin, Sam Worthington, Keira Knightley, Emily Watson, John Hawkes, Robin Wright and Michael Kelly.

"Everest" is based on the 1996 event that had two different climbing expeditions face an epic struggle for survival in their attempt to reach the summit of the world's highest mountain.

The festival's announcement is kind of a surprise given the fact that Venice usually opens with a prestige films save for 2013's "Gravity," which was a big budget feature. In fact, the opening film is usually a big Oscar contender. For example, in 2007, "Atonement" began its Oscar run at Venice before winning the Golden Globe and BAFTA for Best Picture. Other Oscar nominees that opened at the festival included 2010's "Black Swan," 2011's "The Ides of March" and last year's Best Picture winner "Birdman." The festival usually has some duds including "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" which opened in 2012, but it usually tries to keep the quality high for its inaugural. Even in 2008 when "Burn After Reading" opened, the film received praise even if it was not the Oscar film that was expected.

"Everest" seems like a tricky proposition given the director has only made action films and many have been received with lukewarm reviews. The cast, however, is made up of many Oscar nominees. Perhaps Venice is looking to line up the biggest stars in the industry ,especially to get the most press possible.

The festival has had to compete with the Toronto International Film Festival throughout the past few years especially since both overlap and many of the same films premiere at both festivals. Venice has lost a lot of its credibility due to the competition with Toronto and it has also had a hard time keeping up with other festivals like Berlin and Cannes.

Venice's consistency with opening nights however has kept the festival's exposure. Over the past few years Toronto and Cannes have raised questions over whether an opening night is necessary. For example, last year's "The Judge" opened Toronto to mixed reviews while Cannes' opener "Grace of Monaco" was called the worst opening in the history of the festival. "The Great Gatsby" opening Cannes and "The Fifth Estate" opening Toronto were also hair-raisers. This year, Cannes kept it under the radar with "Standing Tall," a French movie that made no real impact.

Sundance has now stopped doing the opening night slot and has chosen to show multiple films on the same day. This happened after "Jobs" opened the festival to terrible reviews and Sundance did not want the pressure on one film.

It will be interesting to see if "Everest" lives up to "Birdman" and "Gravity" and if it becomes an unexpected hit. More telling will be if the movie's opening can get press and exposure to Venice and if all the stars show up for the world premiere.

The Venice Film Festival opens on Sept. 2 and "Everest" hits U.S. theaters on Sept. 16.