Earlier in the year, Tom Ford stunned many by telling GQ that he was going to retire from his iconic fashion career as a designer and fully concentrate on cinema.
“I want to spend the next 20 years of my life making films,” Ford said. “And the clock is ticking. And so it was time to say goodbye to fashion. Fashion is a younger man’s game.”
He wasn’t joking. Word on the street is that Ford now has two new projects ready to go. The one that’s set up as his next film, and is being shopped around as we speak, is an adaptation of Anne Rice’s “Cry to Heaven.”
Set in 18th-century Venice, “Cry to Heaven” follows the paths of two unlikely collaborators: a Venetian noble and a castrated singer from Calabria, both trying to succeed in the world of the opera.
Casting is currently underway for “Cry to Heaven” with a potential 2025 shoot being eyed. I don’t have many details about Ford’s other project, but I’m told it’s currently not being prioritized, although unlike the Rice adaptation, it’s said to be an original story concocted solely by Ford.
Ford has directed two well-reviewed films, his 2009 debut “A Single Man” and 2016’s “Nocturnal Animals”; the latter won the Grand Jury Prize at Venice and went on to earn nine BAFTA awards nominations.