A24 has acquired Luca Guadagnino’s anticipated gay love drama, “Queer,” ahead of its Sept. 3 world premiere at the 81st Venice International Film Festival, TheWrap has learned.
Starring Daniel Craig, the adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ 1985 novel is set in 1950s Mexico City and follows William Lee, “an American ex-pat in his late 40s, as he leads a solitary life amidst a small American community,” according to the film’s official synopsis. “However, the arrival in town of Eugene Allerton, a young student, stirs William into finally establishing a meaningful connection with someone.”
Co-starring Drew Starkey, Academy Award nominee Lesley Manville (“Phantom Thread”), Jason Schwartzman, Andra Ursuta, Michael Borremans and David Lowery, the project was written for the screen by Justin Kuritzkes, who most recently collaborated with Guadagnino on Zendaya-starrer “Challengers.”
“’Queer’ is a labor of love, and we could not be more excited that our film has found a home with a studio as daring, vital and trail-blazing as A24,” the filmmaker and Craig said in a joint statement Wednesday. “It is our deep honor to finally bring Burroughs’ legendary novel to life on screen for the first time, and we feel immense gratitude and excitement to be able to present it alongside our treasured collaborators. We could not ask for better partners on this journey.”
“Queer” was produced by Fremantle, Fremantle North America, Lorenzo Mieli for The Apartment, a Fremantle Group Company, and Guadagnino for his Frenesy Film Company, in collaboration with Cinecitta and Frame by Frame. Fremantle Group financed the film.
“We are thrilled that ‘Queer,’ a true milestone in filmmaking and storytelling, will get its U.S. release from A24,” Andrea Scrosati, Fremantle Group COO and CEO Continental Europe, said. “A24 is the perfect partner for Luca Guadagnino’s beautiful and tender film, and we are all looking forward to working with their brilliant team again.”
In addition to screening in competition in Venice, where Guadagnino in 2022 earned the award for Best Director, “Queer” will also have its North American premiere as a Special Presentation at the Toronto International Film Festival and receive the Spotlight Gala at the New York Film Festival.
In a director’s statement provided Venice ahead of its premiere, Guadagnino said the following:
“’How can a man who sees and feels be other than sad?’ William Burroughs asks in the last entry of his personal diary before his death. In adapting his second novel, published almost 40 years after he wrote it, we have tried to respond to this humble appeal of the great iconoclast of the beat generation. Lee loves Allerton, Allerton loves Lee: they will be able to meet despite all the missteps and fears that act on both of them in their picaresque journey in South America projected by Burroughs’ mind?”
CAA Media Finance brokered the A24 deal.
