With the critically-acclaimed Call Me By Your Name winning an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay at this year’s ceremony – and director Luca Guadagnino revealing more details of the sequel on the red carpet – fans are gushing about over the prospect of a future encounter between Elio and Oliver. The film, based on André Aciman’s 2007 novel of the same name, won praise for its realistic depiction of a summer romance between 17-year old Elio and 24-year old, post-grad Oliver in the sun-drenched north Italy countryside – but what could happen in the sequel? When and where will it be set? Here’s a round-up of what we know so far.
Latest updates:
- Armie Hammer says the film “will happen” (see Has filming started?)
When will the second film be set?
Speaking to USA Today at the Oscars red carpet on Sunday (March 4), director Luca Guadagnino said that the second film will take place five or six years after the original – and that he was developing the storyline with André Aciman, the author of the novel upon which the film is based. “I’m already conceiving the story with André Aciman, and it’s gonna happen five or six years afterwards,” Guadagnino told USA Today. “It’s gonna be a new movie, a different tone.”
Who will be in it?
Guadagnino has confirmed that Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet will return respectively in their roles as Oliver and Elio. He has also said in a November 2017 interview with Vulture that the film could see the return of characters Mr. Perlman (Michael Stuhlbarg), Marzia (Esther Garrel), and Mafalda the maid (Vanda Capriolo). And he indicated in an interview with Screen Daily that – in addition to the original actors returning to their respective roles as Oliver, Elio, Mr. Perlman and Marzia – Amira Casar would return in her role as Annella Perlman.
When will it be released?
Guadagnino told Screen Daily in October 2017 that his ideal release date for the second film would be 2020 – this is because Chamalet would be 25, the same age as his character Elio. “If I paired the age of Elio in the film with the age of Timothée, in three years’ time Timothée will be 25, as would Elio by the time the second story was set,” the director said.
Meanwhile Hammer’s character Oliver would be 31 in the second film, with Hammer himself turning 34 in 2020. Guadagnino has pointed out that the role of Oliver will be “closer to the age that Hammer will be at the time”, if it is released in 2020.
The sequel will address the AIDS crisis
Although the novel Call Me by Your Name is set during the height of the AIDS crisis in 1987, the film moves that date to 1983 – the year scientists discovered the virus that causes AIDS. Guadagnino has said that, unlike the first film, the second film will address the AIDS epidemic head-on. “I think it’s going to be a very relevant part of the story,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in January.
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The director even revealed that the opening scene could feature Elio watching Paul Vecchiali’s 1998 film Once More, which is about a man who leaves his wife for another man, and is the first French movie to address AIDS. “I think Elio [Timothee Chalamet] will be a cinephile, and I’d like him to be in a movie theatre watching Paul Vecchiali’s Once More,” said Guadagnino. “That could be the first scene [in the sequel].”
He continued: “The novel has 40 pages at the end that goes through the next 20 years of the lives of Elio and Oliver, so there is some sort of indication through the intention of author André Aciman that the story can continue.
“In my opinion, Call Me can be the first chapter of the chronicles of the life of these people that we met in this movie, and if the first one is a story of coming-of-age and becoming a young man, maybe the next chapter will be: ‘What is the position of the young man in the world, what does he want — and what is left a few years later of such an emotional punch that made him who he is?'”
What else could happen?
Speaking at the Oscars red carpet, Guadagnino told USA Today that the second film will involve Elio and Oliver globetrotting. “They’re gonna go around the world,” he said.
Guadagnino has previously also revealed in an interview with Screen Daily that Elio may not be gay, and could rekindle his relationship with Marzia. “I don’t think Elio is necessarily going to become a gay man. He hasn’t found his place yet. I can tell you that I believe that he would start an intense relationship with Marzia [Esther Garrel’s character] again,” he told the publication.
The storyline could also follow the 40-age epilogue in Aciman’s novel Call Me By Your Name, which depicts Elio visiting Oliver in the USA fifteen years later, where the latter has a wife and children, and Oliver visiting Elio in Italy 20 years after they first met.
In a separate interview with Screen Daily, Guadagnino has suggested the film could also deal with the Iraq War and would be set within the political context around 1990. But, this doesn’t corroborate with the director’s more recent statements about the film taking place five or six years after the original, which was set in 1983, and so remains to be seen. He told Screen Daily in October: “It is the time of the fall of communism and the start of the new world order and the so-called ’The End of History’ that Francis Fukuyama established then. It would be the beginning of the Berlusconi era in Italy and it would mean dealing with the war of Iraq.”
Has filming started?
No. According to a report from USA Today in March, the script still needs to be finished before filming can begin.
However, things now look to be moving forward with the film. In a new interview published in September, Armie Hammer told Variety: “It will happen because there are already people working on it and trying to make it happen. How much do I know and how much could I tell you are two very different things. I know a lot, but I can’t tell you anything.”
Will James Ivory be involved?
Ivory, whose screenplay for the film has won an Oscar and a BAFTA, has previously cast doubt over a sequel going ahead, saying he has not been contacted about making one.
He told Gay Times last month: “I heard about it. I don’t know how you could make such sequels if they’re far in the future.”
Ivory also seemed to be unaware of Guadagnino’s intention to set the film five or six years after the original, unlike the larger 15-year gap at the end of Aciman’s novel. He said: “It’s not possible to make Timothée [Chalamet] look likes he’s 40. All the make-up in the world and the rest of it and changing voice is not going to do it. I don’t know how. No one has contacted me. You have to think, ‘What does André Aciman think about that?’ It’s his creation. No one seems to know how he feels about it.”
Congratulations James Ivory, Best Adapted Screenplay #Oscars winner! pic.twitter.com/N7NFPGuJEP
— Call Me By Your Name (@CMBYNFilm) March 5, 2018
How many Call Me By Your Name films could there be?
Guadagnino has said there could be up to five CMBYN films, explicitly telling Vulture in November last year: “I want to make five movies”. Guadagnino said he first envisioned a sequel for Call Me By Your Name, when the film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2017. Speaking to Vulture he said: “I didn’t completely realise until then [Sundance] that they were characters who could go beyond the boundaries of the film.” He added that the desire to make a sequel “sprung out of my love for these characters and my desire to visit them again, and in doing so, to be with the same people I did this movie with”.