Welcome to the Elio-Oliver cinematic universe: Call Me by Your Name director Luca Guadagnino says he’s planning a sequel to the Italian summer romance, to be set in the 1990s and released in 2020. “I want to do a sequel because Timothée Chalamet, Armie Hammer, Michael Stuhlbarg, Amira Casar, Esther Garrel — they are all gems,†Guadagnino said during the BFI London Film Festival, according to ScreenDaily. “The texture we built together is very consistent. We created a place in which you believe in the world before them. They are young but they are growing up.†Guadagnino suggested that the sequel might be in the style of Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy, which famously filmed its two sequels years apart, telling the story of Jesse and Celine as they aged. “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,†Guadagnino said.
In the book, Elio and Oliver meet again 15 years later, when Elio is single, and Oliver has a wife and family. Guadagnino said he’s not sure that future installments would follow the book exactly, and that Elio probably wouldn’t be gay in the next installment: “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,†the director said. He is, however, interested in revisiting this story over time, and in tandem with the politics of the 1990s. “It would be that the screen and real life could talk to one another and it would be good to see how this evolves, which is what Truffaut did with Antoine Doinel,†Guadagnino said, referencing The 400 Blows and its four sequels. “I think we can go there.â€