It was a little less than a year ago that Luca Guadagnino began stoking the coals of a Call Me By Your Name sequel, saying that he envisions the story as a long-running series in the vein of Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise films. There’s been plenty of chatter since then, with stars Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer expressing their interest and screenwriter James Ivory casting doubt on the entire endeavor.
“I wouldn’t want to be involved,” Ivory told The Film Stage last month. “I can’t imagine having to make Timothée Chalamet look 45. I mean, that would be horrendous and so fake looking if that’s what they are going to do!” He also said that André Aciman, who wrote the book upon which Call Me By Your Name was based, wasn’t into a sequel, either. “André Aciman just laughed at the idea to me. He said it was not a good idea. They can’t do a sequel, I think, without him being on board. It’s his characters and his story. But that seems to have died down a bit. I haven’t heard much about it lately.”
As of last night, however, Aciman seems to have changed his tune. “I would actually love a sequel to Call Me by Your Name,” he wrote. “In fact I am writing one.”
That’s all the details we have for now, but the confirmation that Aciman is pursuing his own sequel is interesting in light of Guadagnino’s thoughts on his own follow-up, which he indicated would involve the AIDS epidemic in the mid-’80s. It brings to mind the recent news that Margaret Atwood would be writing a sequel to her 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale, one separate from the award-winning Hulu series inspired by it.
We’re excited to see if Aciman and Guadagnino’s visions will dovetail, though maybe not as much as Hammer, who replied quite enthusiastically to Aciman’s tweet.
Peach, anyone?