Luca Guadagnino Vows Daniel Craig-Starring 'Queer' Will Feature Plenty of 'Scandalous' Sex Scenes

"Call Me by Your Name" and "Challengers" director Luca Guadagnino says his next film, "Queer," is his "most personal," and promises there will be abundant (and scandalous) sex in the movie.

The celebrated director made his remarks to an audience at a June 22 event titled "Meeting with Luca Guadagnino" at the Pesaro International Film Festival in Italy, reported Cinecittà. The director was a guest of honor at the festival, the film news outlet noted.

Guadagnino related the film back to an unexpected classic: 1948's "The Red Shoes," by filmmakers Michael Powell, an Englishman, and Emeric Pressburger, a Jewish Hungarian who lived in various European locales as the Nazis rose to power before finding refuge in London.

Calling "Queer" "a tribute to Powell and Pressburger, Guadagnino told his audience, "I've seen 'The Red Shoes' at least 50 times, and I think [Powell and Pressburger] would appreciate the sex scenes in 'Queer,' which are numerous and quite scandalous."

The film stars "James Bond" actor Daniel Craig, who has not been shy about playing queer. Craig starred in John Maybury's 1998 Francis Bacon biopic "Love is the Devil" as the famed painter's male lover. Craig also portrays his "Knives Out" detective Benoit Blanc as gay, and he even intimated during his 15-year, five-film reign as James Bond that the celebrated secret agent was bisexual.

As previously reported, early word on the movie leaked from Cannes last month, where a writer for World of Reel heard from a producer attending the festival that the three-hour-long film – the second project Guadagnino has undertaken with "Challengers" screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes – is "fantastic" and may be Craig's "best work."