Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino leapt from the swooning, romantic Call Me By Your Name to the death-obsessed Suspiria. And he seems to like it in the dark corners of human experience, because his next project (OK, after the Call Me sequel) is called Born to Be Murdered. Starring John David Washington (BlacKKKlansman) and Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl), BTBM is set in Athens, Greece, where a couple on vacation inadvertently becomes involved in a conspiracy plot that leads to violence and tragedy. That’s all the plot we know right now, and no, we cannot be sure that Guadagnino muse Tilda Swinton won’t pop up unannounced, playing three different characters in wacky prosthetic make-up, but if she does we won’t be angry about it. Bring on the freaky murders and all the Swinton the project requires, that’s our official position.
In 1929, a Harlem Renaissance writer named Nella Larsen published a novel titled Passing, about a very provocative topic: the practice of light skinned black people living their lives as white in order to get more opportunities and avoid Jim Crow laws that codified white supremacy. Unlike other more celebrated and well known books by black authors of that era, Passing is notable for its contribution to literary history yet still hadn’t made the leap to a film version, at least until now. The book is in production from actor-director Rebecca Hall and will star Tessa Thompson (Avengers: Endgame) and Ruth Negga (Loving). The women will play school friends who are reunited several years later as adults, their relationship fraught with difficulty as one of the women lives as white for the sake of her husband. The project, currently in pre-production, should go before the cameras soon, so there’s no scheduled release date just yet, but Thompson’s star is on the rise, so expect this to make some noise when it finally makes it to screen.
Romeo San Vicente only plans for makeouts, never murders.
