Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino is having quite the year. His tennis comedy/love triangle film “Challengers,” starring Zendaya, has already grossed $68 million worldwide—not bad for a drama without a major I.P. attached to it— and his next film, “Queer,” an adaptation of the William S. Burroughs novel starring Daniel Craig, is said to be done and will probably debut during the fall film festival circuit later this year. But there’s much more to come, including a new thriller called “After The Hunt.”
Set up at Imagine And Amazon MGM Studios, “After The Hunt” is a thriller that already has Julia Roberts attached to star. But the movie is already adding more A-list firepower to it thanks to the addition of two-time Oscar nominee Andrew Garfield (“The Social Network,” “Hacksaw Ridge,” “Tick, Tick… Boom!”).
Moreover, Deadline reports that “After The Hunt” will start production this summer and is intended for a 2025 release, which certainly puts it on the fast track for Guadagnino and the many projects he has brewing.
Guadagnino will be directing the film from a screenplay by Nora Garrett. The film is set in the world of academia, arguably centering around ideas of cancel culture and witch hunts by the sounds of it. Described as an intense dramatic thriller, “After The Hunt” centers on a college professor (Roberts) who finds herself at a personal and professional crossroads when a star pupil levels an accusation against one of her colleagues, and a dark secret from her own past threatens to come to light.
The report doesn’t say, but at 40 years old, Garfield is presumably not the star pupil in the drama.
Guadagnino looked like he might be making “Separate Rooms” next, a queer romance film starring his “Challengers” star Josh O’Connor and Lea Seydoux, that was just recently cast, but evidently, the hot package of Roberts, Garfield, and Amazon MGM Studios means that will have to wait for a beat [Deadline]