Armie Hammer Isn't Sold On A 'Call Me By Your Name' Sequel After All

Despite the buzz, the "Hotel Mumbai" star doubted if a follow-up to the beloved gay drama would match the impact of the original.
On plans for a "Call Me by Your Name" sequel, Armie Hammer said, "I don’t know that anything will match up to the first, you know?"
On plans for a "Call Me by Your Name" sequel, Armie Hammer said, "I don’t know that anything will match up to the first, you know?"
Getty Editorial

Armie Hammer doesn’t seem to share his fans’ interest in a follow-up to his gay-themed romance, “Call Me by Your Name.”

Speaking to Vulture in an interview published Tuesday, the actor seemed skeptical that he and co-star Timothée Chalamet would reprise their roles as lovers Oliver and Elio in a sequel to the 2017 film, based on André Aciman’s novel of the same name.

Promoting his new film, “Hotel Mumbai,” Hammer acknowledged there have been “really loose conversations” about a “Call Me by Your Name” sequel, but whether one will materialize on the big screen was another story.

“I’m sort of coming around to the idea that the first one was so special for everyone who made it, and so many people who watched it felt like it really touched them, or spoke to them,” he said. “And it felt like a really perfect storm of so many things, that if we do make a second one, I think we’re setting ourselves up for disappointment.”

He added, “I don’t know that anything will match up to the first, you know?”

Hammer’s latest remarks seemed to contradict those of director Luca Guadagnino, who in January 2018 expressed interest in expanding Oliver and Elio’s love story into a “Before Sunrise”-like trilogy that would acknowledge the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s and ’90s.

Guadagnino, who also directed last year’s “Suspiria” remake, elaborated in a USA Today interview last March, promising a “different tone” and a new locale.

“They’re going to go around the world,” he said at the time.

Despite that early buzz, Hammer said he was “not sure that it was ever really definitely going to happen” but left the door open under the right circumstances.

“If we end up with an incredible script, and Timmy’s in, and Luca’s in, I’d be an asshole to say no,” he said. “But at the same time, I’m like, ‘That was such a special thing, why don’t we just leave that alone?’”

Hammer left the door open to a sequel if co-star Timothée Chalamet signed on and with the right script.
Hammer left the door open to a sequel if co-star Timothée Chalamet signed on and with the right script.
Matt Winkelmeyer via Getty Images

Turns out, whether Oliver and Elio reconnect onscreen might just be a matter of finances. Though it’s unclear how serious Hammer was being in terms of numbers, he implied that both he and Chalamet would expect a salary bump before signing on for a sequel.

“Timmy said the only way he’d do it is if they paid him $15 million,” he said. “And I won’t do it for less than, uh, $10 million!” (Later in the interview, he adjusted that figure to $12.5 million, “plus 10 percent commission for my agent.”)

For now, however, fans can console themselves in knowing we’ll always have this:

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