If you’ve been on Twitter in the past week you’ll have seen the buzz around Todd Haynes’ latest project, May December. The movie, which premiered at Cannes Film Festival and is set for a Netflix release, is one of the standouts of this year’s line-up and is set to be the buzziest movie from the progenitor of the New Queer Cinema movement since 2017’s Carol. But he’s not stopping there, and in an interview given while promoting May December at Cannes, Todd also shared details of his next movie: an NC-17 rated gay love story starring Joaquin Phoenix.
The as-yet-untitled film is said to be set in Los Angeles in the 1930s, a decade that began with “The Pansy Craze”, a period famed for an increase in drag performers at speakeasies and underground gay bars during the prohibition era. At the end of the previous decade Hollywood’s first gay nightclub was opened and, despite homosexuality and female impersonation being illegal, the queer performance scene was thriving like never before. At the same time though, paparazzi were intent on outing the queer individuals within Hollywood and police raids on bars were frequent. As yet, it’s unclear exactly what the narrative of Todd and Joaquin’s movie will explore. Moreover, Todd’s movies famously often cover multiple decades, so perhaps the film will also be set against the background of World War II and the rise of the American Gay Rights Movement in the latter half of the 20th century.
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We do know, however, that Joaquin, who recently mesmerised audiences in Ari Aster’s Beau Is Afraid, has played a significant role in crafting the story. “The next film is a feature that’s an original script that I developed with Joaquin Phoenix based on some thoughts and ideas he brought to me,” Todd told IndieWire. “We basically wrote with him as a story writer.” Emmy-nominated author and screenwriter Jon Raymond also shares a story credit on the project that is set to begin filming early next year. Todd added that Joaquin is the reason the movie will be graphic and rated NC-17 — one step above R-rated, meaning no one aged 16 or younger can see it in cinemas in the US. “Joaquin was pushing me further and going ‘no, let’s go further,'” he said. Notice how Joaquin just did Joker: Folie á Deux and then co-wrote an uber-horny gay period drama? Could this somehow be Gaga’s influence?
With filming set to begin in early 2024, it’s likely it will be 2025 (perhaps premiering at Cannes in two years!) before we can finally watch our next queer movie obsession.