page_title: Call Me by Your Name (film)
section_title: Development
hierarchical_section_title: Call Me by Your Name (film) / Production / Development
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: James Ivory alla Mostra del cinema di Venezia del 1991
context_page_description: Call Me by Your Name is a 2017 coming-of-age romantic drama film directed by Luca Guadagnino. Its screenplay, by James Ivory, who also co-produced, is based on the 2007 novel of the same name by André Aciman. The film is the final installment in Guadagnino's thematic "Desire" trilogy, after I Am Love, and A Bigger Splash. Set in 1983 in northern Italy, Call Me by Your Name chronicles the romantic relationship between a 17-year-old, Elio Perlman, and Oliver, a 24-year-old graduate-student assistant to Elio's father, an archaeology professor. The film also stars the French actresses Amira Casar, Esther Garrel, and Victoire Du Bois.
  Development began in 2007 when producers Peter Spears and Howard Rosenman optioned the rights to Aciman's novel. Ivory had been chosen to co-direct with Guadagnino, but stepped down in 2016. Guadagnino had joined the project as a location scout, and eventually became sole director, and co-producer. Call Me by Your Name was financed by several international companies, and its principal photography took place mainly in the city and comune of Crema, Lombardy, between May and June 2016.
context_section_description: Two of the film's producers, Peter Spears and Howard Rosenman, saw a galley proof of André Aciman's debut novel Call Me by Your Name in 2007 and "optioned" the screen rights before its publication. Rosenman first heard about the book through a friend after acting in Milk (2008) and described it as "divine". Spears, moved by the novel and believing it deserved a cinematic adaptation, received his first credit as a producer from his work on the film. They invited their friend James Ivory to work as an executive producer on the film adaptation. Spears and Rosenman began production in 2008, but the project was soon trapped in "development hell". The producers met with three sets of directors and writers—among them Gabriele Muccino, Ferzan Özpetek, and Sam Taylor-Johnson—but could not find anyone who would commit to the project. Scheduling filming in Italy during the summer also proved difficult.
  The producers contacted Guadagnino, their first choice to direct, but he declined, citing a busy schedule. However, as Guadagnino lived in northern Italy, he was initially hired as a location consultant instead. Guadagnino later suggested that he co-direct the film with Ivory, but no contractual agreement was put in place. Ivory accepted the offer to co-direct on the condition that he would also write the film; he spent "about nine months" on the screenplay. Guadagnino, who has described the novel as "a Proustian book about remembering the past and indulging in the melancholy of lost things", collaborated on the adaptation with Ivory and Walter Fasano. Screenwriting took place at Ivory's house, Guadagnino's kitchen table in Crema, and sometimes in New York City. Ivory rarely met Guadagnino during the process, since the director was busy making A Bigger Splash (2015).
  The screenplay was completed in late 2015. Aciman approved it and commended the adaptation as "direct ... real and persuasive", adding "they've done better than the book". The completed screenplay was vital in securing funding for the film. Among the financiers were the production companies La Cinéfacture (France), Frenesy Film Company (Italy, owned by Guadagnino), M.Y.R.A. Entertainment (United States), RT Features (Brazil), and Water's End Productions (United States). The project was also supported by the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism. The backers deemed the production's initial cost estimates "too expensive", so the production budget was reduced from $12 million to $3.4 million and the filming schedule was cut from 12 to 5 weeks.
  Ivory stepped down from a directorial role in 2016, leaving Guadagnino to direct the film alone. According to Ivory, financiers from Memento Films International did not want two directors involved with the project because they "thought it would be awkward ... It might take longer, it would look terrible if we got in fights on the set, and so on." Guadagnino said Ivory's version would have likely been "a much more costly [and] different film" that would have been too expensive to make. Ivory became the sole-credited screenwriter and later sold the rights to the screenplay to Guadagnino's company. Call Me by Your Name was Ivory's first produced screenplay since Le Divorce (2003) and the only narrative feature he has written but not directed. He remained involved with other aspects of the production. Guadagnino dedicated the film to his late friend Bill Paxton, who came to visit the set in Crema before his death in February 2017.
caption: James Ivory, pictured in September 1991, took nine months to write the script, and had been set to co-direct the film.
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