Coming off of the incredible success of his Oscar-nominated film, “Call Me By Your Name,” filmmaker Luca Guadagnino could have done anything. And what he decided should be his follow-up is a remake of the horror classic, “Suspiria.” The director found a great cast and crafted a really different version of the Dario Argento film, earning early raves from its festival appearances. Unfortunately for Guadagnino, that did not translate to box office success. And apparently, that cratered all hope that there could be a possible sequel.
“Well, I’ll tell you something, ‘Suspiria’ was originally titled ‘Suspiria: Part 1’ in the script and in the slate. That’s true,” he told the Film Stage.
When asked if the fact that he only told part of his story means we should expect a sequel to the horror film, the filmmaker scoffed at the notion. Not because he’s not interested in the idea, but instead, the fact that the financials don’t make sense.
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“How? How, my dear? The movie made absolutely nothing,” he explained. “It was a disaster at the box office. It’s very dear to me. But [the] writer and I had really conceived it as the first half of a bigger story”
That didn’t stop the filmmaker from explaining what he envisioned for “Suspiria: Part 2.” You see, in the sequel, the film would have expanded its vision much more and ventured through various times and places.
“With ‘Suspiria,’ I can tell you that in part two the storyline was layered in five different time zones and spaces,” Guadagnino revealed. “One of these was Helena Markos being a charlatan woman in the year 1200 in Scotland and how she got the secret of longevity.”
Of course, just because it didn’t work out with “Suspiria,” it doesn’t mean that the filmmaker has sworn off sequels forever. In fact, he believes that there’s still a possibility for a continuation of the story of his recent HBO series, “We Are Who We Are,” as well as the sequel to the aforementioned “Call Me By Your Name” that he’s teased for years now.
“Sequels are an attitude of the soul,” he added. “You want to do things because you want to spend time with people that you love, the actors you love, the writers you love.”
Unfortunately for horror fans, it appears “Suspiria” is one and done.