BEVERLY HILLS – Think again if you assume Luca Guadagnino is already sick and tired about being asked about a much teased about “Call Me By Your Name” sequel or sequels (well, more on that term later). The Best Picture nominee earned screenwriter James Ivory a long overdue Oscar and found a legion of fans who were transfixed by the romance between Elio (Timothée Chalamet) and Oliver (Armie Hammer). Guadagnino is currently promoting his new incarnation of “Suspiria,” but has no issues waxing about what happens next to our estranged lovebirds.
“I’m not sick of anything,” Guadagnino says. “I’m happy and grateful, I feel blessed.”
READ MORE: Luca Guadagnino wants to make five “Call Me By Your Name” sequels
The first film ended with Elio and his parents Annella (Amira Casar) and Isaac (Michael Stuhlbarg) discovering that Oliver has gotten engaged over a long distance phone call, but there was much more to the story in writer André Aciman’s original novel. That will likely be a guide for any future installment along with some specific ideas the Oscar-nominated director has for what happens next.
“One the one hand, I think that Elio and Oliver, they should be older,” Guadagnino says. “Now Elio is 17 and I see him being 25 in the next chapter of his life. And Oliver is 24, so this means that he should be 8 years later 32. I think that because Timmy is now 22, we have a little bit if time. At the same time, I have not been able to luxuriate in anything but the promotion of ‘Suspiria’ and the promotion of ‘Call Me By Your Name, the editing of ‘Suspiria.’ I didn’t have space of mind and the real, actual time to put ideas on the table and think of things. And maybe deal with them with the help and companionship of André Aciman. I’ve processed many, many ideas that I’d like to share but I can’t. Because it’s not yet [formalized]. But I think a lot is also in [the novel] ‘Call Me by Your Name’s’ final 50 pages. In which you follow them for 20 years.”
“I said for instance that definitely Elio will be a cinephile. A great musician and cinephile,” Guadagnino says. “I think that Annella will be bewildered by the fall of the USSR. I think [her] son will be somehow nostalgic of the America he left behind. I also think Oliver will grow up with a beautiful family with his fantastic wife who probably will know about the type of love that Oliver feels for Elio.”
The Italian filmmaker clearly has great affection for these characters and, perhaps more importantly, the actors who play them. He does want to make clear wherever the story goes it won’t be a “sequel” in his eyes.
“I believe that there is sometimes in life the opportunity to meet good people, who are only for the best,” Guadagnino says. “And I think it’s very cinematic to follow their stories. I wouldn’t call it a sequel. [The term] sequel is really cold. I admire sequels, but it’s very cold. Like for instance, the sequel to ‘Batman,’ ‘Batman Returns,’ it is a masterpiece and it is a sequel. But I don’t see any kind of new episodes [in the lives] of Elio, Oliver and Annella and Isaac and everybody else, as a sequel. I think hopefully it’s gonna be a new chapter in a chronicle and maybe in time we’ll have a box set of the chronicles of life of these people.”
Guadagnino’s new film, “Suspiria,” opens in New York and Los Angeles on Friday.