The director maintains his leading actors Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet are still onboard to star in a sequel to the 2017 gay romance drama.

The “Call Me By Your Name” film sequel is still kicking around with director Luca Guadagnino, it’s just going to take a bit longer to develop since the filmmaker is quarantined in Milan, Italy for the foreseeable future. The director recently told the Italian publication Gay.it (via The Playlist) that he was set to come to America for an important meeting with a potential screenwriter for the sequel before Italy went on lockdown.

“I was going to America to meet a writer I love very much, whose name I don’t want to mention, to talk about the second part,” Guadagnino said. “Unfortunately, everything is canceled. Of course, it’s a great pleasure to work with Timothée Chalamet, Armie Hammer, Michael Stulhbarg, Esther Garrel, and the other actors. They will all be there in the new film.”

Chalamet has long expressed interest in reprising his role as Elio Perlman, which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor in 2018. The actor has said in the past the idea for the “Call Me By Your Name” sequel is to follow in the path of “Boyhood” and wait for the actors to age into the roles they need to be at for next film. While Guadagnino’s most recent comment suggests the cast remains included in the sequel, Hammer has expressed doubts about returning for a follow-up in the past.

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“[The first one] really perfect storm of so many things, that if we do make a second one, I think we’re setting ourselves up for disappointment,” Hammer said to Vulture in March 2019. “I don’t know that anything will match up to the first, you know? I mean, look. If we end up with an incredible script, and Timmy’s in, and Luca’s in, I’d be an asshole to say no. But at the same time, I’m like, that was such a special thing, why don’t we just leave that alone?”

One person who is definitely not returning for a sequel is screenwriter James Ivory, who won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay thanks to his work on the first film. Ivory said in November 2019 that not only was he not involved in the talks for a sequel but that he wouldn’t want to be involved, period. Ivory’s absence is why Guadagnino is taking meetings in the U.S. with new writers who can script the sequel.

The “Call Me By Your Name” sequel is one of several projects Guadagnino is developing. The director said last month he was spending his quarantine finishing post-production on his new HBO drama series “We Are What We Are,” while also working on a documentary about the shoemaker Salvatore Ferragamo and producing the next film from Ferdinando Cito Filomarino.

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