UPDATE: Alright, here we are, 73 days later, and Ford’s comeback film has wrapped production in Rome. This gives him five months of post-production work if he wants to premiere the film at the Venice Film Festival in early September.
UPDATE: Ford’s first film in over 10 years has started production in Rome. The DP ia Benjamin Kracun (“Promising Young Woman,” “The Substance”). A 10-week shoot is expected, with wrap happening sometime in late March — should we expect this one in September at the Venice Film Festival?
EARLIER: Two years ago, Tom Ford told 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. 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. Ford has now set up his next film, an adaptation of Anne Rice’s “Cry to Heaven,” and, according to Deadline, he’s assembled one hell of a cast.
The film is set to star Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Adele, Ciarán Hinds, George MacKay, Mark Strong, Colin Firth, Paul Bettany, Owen Cooper, Hunter Schafer, Thandiwe Newton, Theodore Pellerin, Daryl McCormack, Cassian Bilton, Hauk Hannemann, and Lux Pascal.
Yep, that Adele. This will be the singer’s film acting debut. The film also brings together Ford with several actors he has worked with before, including Taylor-Johnson, known for “Nocturnal Animals,” and Firth, who won the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival for “A Single Man.”
As for what this “epic” new film will be about, if it sticks to its source material, it would most likely be set in 18th-century Venice and follow the paths of two unlikely collaborators: a Venetian noble and a castrated singer from Calabria, both trying to succeed in the world of opera.
Apparently, after speaking to “several studios,” Ford decided to self-finance the film and shoot on his own terms, with plans to take it out to market after production has ended.
The film is currently in pre-production in London and Rome, with principal photography scheduled to begin in mid-January ahead of an anticipated release in late fall 2026.
Ford has so far 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 nominations.