Rumblings started appearing this morning that A24 had bought a major fall contender — an ensemble film with a few stars in it. I immediately thought, this must be Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer.”
I’ve emailed A24 about whether “Queer” has been possibly sold to them, still no reply and they usually answer back pretty quickly. I also had Guadagnino contact and he’s not responded as well.
If A24 has indeed bought “Queer,” it’s pretty obvious they’d want a trade (Variety, THR) breaking the story, possibly during the week, preferably on a Tuesday. We’ll see if this rumor develops into anything, but I have a feeling it might be true. A24’s only likely Oscar contender this year is “Sing Sing” and that one premiered 9 months ago at TIFF.
I spoke to a producer at Cannes who told me he’d seen Guadagnino’s “Queer” and that it was “fantastic” and clocked in at 3 hours. Daniel Craig might have delivered the performance of his career. I believe them them. This could be a major one.
“Queer” will world premiere at the Venice Film Festival which is set to begin on August 28. It currently has no distributor, and given that this fall’s slate of films lacks major Oscar bait — save for McQueen’s “Blitz” and a few others — I wouldn’t be surprised if it gets picked up before the fest happens.
Based on William S. Burroughs’ controversial novel, Guadagnino’s film wrapped production last July and recently wrapped post prod. The film stars Daniel Craig, Drew Starkey, Jason Schwartzman and Lesley Manville.
Burroughs‘ work was written as a quasi-sequel to his semi-autobiographical 1953 novel “Junkie.” Its homosexual themes were deemed too controversial at the time for readers, and it went unpublished until 1985.
“Hope,” Na’s first film in ten years — his last one being the exemplary “The Wailing” —is a gloriously messy, blood-soaked sci-fi epic that may become a cult classic despite—or because of—its polarizing nature.