Remember when there was talk of a Call Me By Your Name sequel? Well, Luca Guadagnino is raising our spirits (in what we pray will be the last time) to tell us that not all hope is lost. After much back and forth that ended with the director telling audiences he was unlikely to revisit the story, it appears the sequel is back on the cards now that Bones & All has wrapped up. Still following?

Of course there were other reasons to put the project on the backburner. At the time, Timothée Chalamet had signed onto just about every film under the sun, namely Dune, a Bob Dylan biopic in which he had been tapped to lead, and a Willy Wonka movie. Then came the disturbing allegations of abuse levelled at Armie Hammer that rightfully led to his exile from Hollywood. Guadagnino too, had other projects he wished to work on. Yes, there was Bones & All, but also another Scarface.

So now that Guadagnino is getting the ball rolling with a follow up to CMBYN, it will apparently look very different to what was originally proposed. At Telluride Film Festival the director gave an interview in which he said, “A sequel is an American concept". And so, if he were to revisit André Aciman's novel, it would be “more like the chronicles of Elio, the chronicles of this young boy becoming a man. It is something I want to do.”

Given what's been said about the sequel-not-sequel in the past, it's likely to stick to the narrative of Aciman's 2019 novel Find Me, in which the author revisits Elio, Oliver and Elio's father, Samuel, a decade after that sweltering summer in Crema. Split into three parts, it will focus on each character individually, drawing on themes of new love, memory and reconciliation. It's a clever perspective, as it will allow Guadagnino to recast the role of Oliver in a way that feels natural given the 10-year difference.

Although we admit, the idea of re-entering the CMBYN universe is tempting, we're not going to hold our breath unless more concrete confirmation is given.

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