Many of you will no doubt be dashing to your nearest movie theatre to catch the opening day of Luca Guadagnino’s highly anticipated new movie Challengers   (see our preview HERE).

Queerguru on the other hand are already biting at the bit about the next film due from one of our favorite  queer Italian filmmakers.  Guadagnino (Oscar nominated for Call Me by Your Name) has just finished filming QUEERS from a screenplay by Justin Kuritzkes, based on the 1985 novel of the same name by William S. Burroughs. 

Set in 1940s Mexico City, the film follows Lee an outcast American (Daniel Craig) who has fled from a drug bust in New Orleans.  Lee wanders around the city’s clubs and becomes infatuated with a much younger drug user Allerton,  (Drew Starkey) a discharged American Navy serviceman.

Evidently Guadagnino  has wanted to make an adaptation of William S. Burroughs’  novel Queer since he read the book when he was 17. In April 2022 he mentioned the book to screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes while they were on set for their film Challengers in Boston. A few phone calls from his producer who bought secure the rights from Burroughs’ estate. and so Kuritzkes began writing the script while they were still working on Challengers.

It will be the 4th time that the ex James Bond actor gets to play gay .  Two years ago he played gay detective Benoit Blanc in the Knives Out sequel.  At the time Blanc’s sexuality was the point of much speculation given that the film features a particular scene that suggests Blanc is living with a man.

There was never any doubt of the sexuality of one time small crook George Dyer who was the lover of the artist Francis  Bacon in a biopic of his life Love Is the Devil:  Filmed in 1998, and one of Craig’s first major film roles with its very explicit scenes it  left nothing to one’s imagination   

Later in 1993 Craig was in the original  London Cast of Tony Kushner’s harrowing AIDS epic Angels in America at he National Theatre

Queers is expected to play the Film Festival circuit in Fall 2024