Although A24 didn’t pick up Call Me by Your Name, they are still firmly in the Timothée Chalamet business after Lady Bird, and now, Hot Summer Nights. Premiering last year at South by Southwest Film Festival and wisely held after the actor’s major fall and for, of course, a mid-summer release date, A24 has now debuted the first trailer.
Coming from helmer Elijah Bynum, who makes his directorial debut, the 1991-set story follows Chalamet stars as a teenager who starts dealing drugs and falls for his business partner’s sister (Maika Monroe). With a slick, fast-paced visual style, the trailer hints at a promising debut for Bynum and a different side of Chalamet.
“Stand by Me was a huge influence, and Stephen King is one of the greatest writers in the last 50 years,” the director tells Consequence of Sound. “I think there’s a way he taps into things that are very visceral and emotional and also just very American. I think the story, in a way, is this bygone American era that adds the nostalgia without it feeling pastiche necessarily.”
See the trailer below.
Set in Cape Cod over one scorching summer, Hot Summer Nights follows Daniel (Timothée Chalamet), a shy out-of-towner who gets in over his head flipping weed with the neighborhood rebel (Alex Roe) while pursuing his new business partner’s enigmatic sister (Maika Monroe). With a hurricane looming in the wings, tensions rise against a backdrop of drive-ins, arcades, and crashed parties as the stakes (and temperatures) grow ever higher.
Hot Summer Nights hits DIRECTV on June 28 and theaters on July 27.