Times are about to get very busy for Luca Guadagnino. With his tennis/throuple film Challengers coming up next month, and possibly the Daniel Craig-led adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ Queer later in the year, Guadagnino has added two more projects in the span of a day.
First, Guadagnino will reunite with Challengers star Josh O’Connor for Separate Rooms. Variety says O’Connor is in talks to join the film based on the eponymous novel by Italian writer Pier Vittorio Tondelli. O’Connor is learning Italian to play the role of Leo, a writer mourning the loss of his boyfriend, and enters a passionate romance with the shy German musician Thomas, which is marked by different forms of separation.
The script is by Francesca Manieri, and will be shot “soon” according to Guadagnino.
Next up, Deadline reports that Guadagnino will direct Julia Roberts in After the Hunt, a thriller set up at Amazon MGM Studios. Marking the first screenplay by writer/director/actress Nora Garrett, the story is “an intense dramatic thriller about a college professor (Roberts) who finds herself at a personal and professional crossroads when a star pupil levels an accusation against one of her colleagues and a dark secret from her own past threatens to come to light.”
Roberts was last seen in the Sam Esmail thriller Leave the World Behind, which caused quite a stir with Netflix viewers. Landing one of the biggest and most popular actresses in the world is quite a coup for Guadagnino, but at this point it’s no problem for him to land top talent. Roberts is only working with the best these days, and has slowed down her output considerably.
