By now surely you've heard the buzz around Call Me By Your Name, Luca Guadagnino's take on André Aciman's novel of the same name.
If you haven't, first of all... how?... but ultimately it follows the romantic relationship between young Elio (played by Timothée Chalamet) and his father's academic assistant Oliver (Armie Hammer) set in Northern Italy in the early 1980s.
The film is a gorgeous coming of age queer story that depicts the tiny moments of intimacy between the pair as they navigate their growing feelings for one another.
The film has seen huge success with critics and especially LGBTI+ audiences, though it wasn't without critique. Some viewers found issue with the way gay sex and male nudity were depicted in comparison to hetero and female nudity.
Others took issue with the two main actors being cast as heterosexual men to play queer characters. Still, despite all the criticisms, the film may be on track to rustle up a few Oscar nominations.
Unfortunately, looming over the success is Guadagnino's insistence that the film may have a sequel in the works. If you read into some of his past comments, the director may even hint that he wants to expand the series into even more films.
Think of it as a Call Me By Your Name extended universe.
Speaking to The Guardian in late December, Guadagnino said, "These characters are so fantastic, and I want to know what happens to them.
"The last 40 pages of the book tell you about 20 years in the life of Oliver and Elio. So I started to think about Michael Apted’s Up, and the cycle of films Truffaut devoted to the character of Antoine Doinel.
"And I thought, maybe it’s not a question of sequel, it’s a question of chronicling everyone in this film. I think seeing these characters growing in the bodies of these actors will be quite fantastic."
Apted's Up,that Guadagnino referenced, is a series of documentaries spanning almost 50 years, one produced every seven years, following the lives of fourteen British kids from when they were seven.
Truffaut's Antoine Doinel, on the other hand, was a fictional character who reappeared in several of his films beginning with The 400 Blows.
The way Guadagnino phrased his answer regarding sequels all centres around these more dynamic film structures, ones where the characters span several movies, potentially in a more fluid nature than simply a follow-up to the original film.
So, if the director has his way we may see not one but many of the Call Me By Your Name characters reappearing in several films over the course of the next few years.
