Luca Guadagnino’s Venice-Bound ‘Queer,’ Starring Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey, Gets a First Look
Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers” follow-up transports audiences back in time.
Guadagnino’s “Queer,” written by “Challengers” screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes and adapted from William S. Burroughs’ 1985-published novella, stars Daniel Craig as an American expat and war veteran who begins a romance with a younger man (Drew Starkey). The film, as expected, will debut in competition at the 2024 Venice Film Festival, and of today’s surprises was the confirmed casting of pop star Omar Apollo with a top-billed role in the film.
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“Queer” follows William Lee (Craig), now in his late 40s and in 1940s Mexico City, reminiscing about his past life among American expatriate college students and barkeeps eking out their own living on part-time jobs and GI benefits. Lee ends up chasing a young student named Eugene Allerton (Starkey, a breakout of Netflix’s series “Outer Banks”). For his novella, “Naked Lunch” writer Burroughs allegedly based the Allerton character on a man named Adelbert Lewis Marker, a discharged Jacksonville Navyman whom Burroughs befriended on his own journey in Mexico City. One that inspired the book’s writing, which started in the early 1950s.
The rest of the “Queer” cast includes Jason Schwartzman, Henrique Zaga, Andres Duprat, Ariel Shulman, Drew Droege, Colin Bates, and filmmakers Lisandro Alonso, David Lowery, and Michael Borremans.
For the film, Guadagnino reunites with fashion designer and “Challengers” costumer Jonathan Anderson, as well as “Challengers” and “Bones and All” composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, who shot “Challengers,” “Call Me By Your Name,” and “Suspiria,” also returns. “Queer” has no U.S. distributor just yet.
Venice Film Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera told Variety that Craig’s performance would be a frontrunner for the Best Actor awards circuit.
“The fact that Daniel Craig lent himself to a couple of very explicit erotic sequences is a sign of great courage in an era in which these behaviors are still rejected by a significant part of the audience,” Barbera said. “There are two, so to speak, memorable acting turns this year [at Venice] that are the performances of a lifetime and those are Daniel Craig in ‘Queer’ and Joaquin Phoenix in ‘Joker 2.’ They are absolutely memorable performances and I would be surprised if they didn’t end up competing for the highest recognition both in Venice and at the Oscars.”
“Queer” director Guadagnino gave screenwriter Kuritzkes a copy of William S. Burroughs’ book on the set of “Challengers,” as the screenwriter told IndieWire.
“[Luca] just gave me this book and said, ‘Read this tonight and tell me if you want to write it for me,'” Kuritzkes said. “I was so completely honored and touched that Luca would trust me with this movie. And that really was a process of me trying to be a bridge between these two brilliant guys, these two brilliant artists, William S. Burroughs on the one hand and Luca on the other, and really trying to facilitate this meeting place with the two of them. To be in the midst of that, I found it so, so gratifying.”
Kuritzkes is also set to write an adaptation of Don Winslow’s “City on Fire” and a Mike Nichols-inspired film with Jude Law.
Guadagnino was set to return to Venice in 2023 with “Challengers,” meant to open the festival before its release got pushed to this year due to the strikes. (It’s one of IndieWire’s favorite films of 2024 so far.) The Italian filmmaker regularly brings premieres to the Lido, including “Bones and All” and “Suspiria,” which both played in competition. “Queer” puts Guadagnino in competition for the Golden Lion once again.
In addition to “Queer,” Guadagnino is set to collaborate again with “Challengers” star Josh O’Connor for “Separate Rooms,” based on Pier Vittorio Tondelli’s novel. O’Connor will play the lead role of Leo, an Italian writer mourning the death of his musician boyfriend Thomas. Léa Seydoux plays the part of a love triangle between O’Connor’s character and his ill-fated lover. It’s one of the many Guadagnino projects in the works, though his imaginings of “Scarface” and “Lord of the Flies” have fallen away.
Guadagnino is also directing “After the Hunt” with Julia Roberts, who plays a college professor at a personal and professional crossroads when a pupil’s accusation threatens her dark past. Past Guadagnino collaborators Chlo? Sevigny and Michael Stuhlbarg, plus Andrew Garfield, and Ayo Edebiri co-star. Production on that film started this summer, so “After the Hunt” is confirmed to be his next release after “Queer.”
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