Cry To Heaven: Everything We Know So Far About Tom Ford’s Star-Studded Comeback

Tom Ford has an eye for beauty – that much is undeniable. From transforming a struggling Gucci into a luxury behemoth to launching his own eponymous label, everything the American designer touches is glamorous, sleek and sexy. And this includes the film industry.

After departing Gucci in 2004 and founding his film company Fade to Black in 2005, Ford translated a life-long passion for cinema into a bonafide business. His directorial debut, A Single Man (2009) earned an Oscar nomination and was totally self-funded, allowing Ford to keep a tight grip on his creative vision. This ultimately made for an even more appealing pitch when he approached international distributors with Nocturnal Animals, which would become his 2016 sophomore feature, bagging the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival.

Quiet in the film space for almost a decade, Ford sold his fashion house to Estee Lauder for £2.4 billion in 2022, telling GQ in 2023 he was saying ‘goodbye to fashion’. ‘Fashion is a younger man’s game. Designers rarely change the world of fashion at 62,’ he said, adding: ‘I felt, after 35 years, I had said everything I could say with fashion. It’s important to know when to get off the stage. I loved making the two films that I made. That was the most fun I’ve ever had in my entire life. I’m 62. Hopefully, I’ll remain somewhat together until 82. So I wanna spend the next 20 years of my life making films. And the clock is ticking.’

And now Ford is finally back with his third feature, which is also the third to be based on an American novel. Here’s everything we know so far about Cry To Heaven – which in contrast boasts a strikingly British cast.

Tom Ford’s Cry To Heaven: Plot, Cast, Release Date & More

The late Anne Rice is one of America’s best-selling authors, best known for The Vampire Chronicles and her own screen adaptation of it, Interview with the Vampire (1994) starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. Interested in Gothic and Bible fiction, Rice grew up in New Orleans and most of her 37 novels are backdropped by the eclectic city.

But Cry To Heaven (1982) is different: one of Rice’s few standalone novels, it takes us back to eighteenth century Italy and traces the paths of two unlikely collaborators, the Venetian noble 15-year-old Tonio Treschi and the peasant born Guido Maffeo, a maestro castrato from Calabria. When he is brutally castrated by his wicked brother to steal his inheritance, Tonio is exiled to Naples where he is mentored by the ageing Guido, who teaches him to harness his phenomenal voice. Eventually Tonio becomes a celebrated opera star – dedicating his fame and talent to enacting a meticulously planned, long-awaited vengeance against Carlo.

This is the novel Tom Ford’s third feature film will adapt for the screen. Concerned as it is with opera, Cry To Heaven’s plot is as melodramatic as a classic opera – which fits Ford’s film style to date. Neither A Single Man nor Nocturnal Animals could be described as subtle: they’re packed with intense emotion, sudden bursts of violence and high-stages conflict. A visual spectacle, Ford uses the colour, light, costume and meticulous production value you’d expect from a stage production, which also creates a layer or beautiful artifice.

Naturally we expect this all to be heightened in Cry To Heaven, which delves into the already lavishly wealthy world of the opera,  defined by intrigue, glamour, opulence and style. Despite reportedly speaking to several film studios, as with A Single Man Ford will be financing Cry To Heaven by himself, meaning he will shoot it on his own aesthetic terms before selling it to distributors afterwards.

 

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The Cast

It may be set in eighteenth century Italy, but Cry To Heaven is strikingly British in its cast. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Nicholas Hoult, George MacKay, Mark Strong, Colin Firth, Thandiwe Newton, Paul Bettany, Cassian Bilton and Adolescence breakout star Owen Cooper will all star. And if that weren’t enough Blighty for you, 16-time Grammy Award winning British singer Adele will also star in Cry To Heaven in her acting debut.

They will be joined by Irish stars Ciarán Hinds and Daryl McCormack, as well as Hunter Schafer, Josephine Thiesen, Théodore Pellerin, Hauk Hannemann and Chilean star Lux Pascal, sister of 2025’s man of the hour, Pedro Pascal.

There’s no news just yet regarding who will star in each role, but we imagine renowned mezzo-soprano singer Adele (full name Adele Laurie Blue Atkins) will star as an opera singer in a supporting role. We imagine Hoult and Taylor-Johnson (who both recently starred in Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu) will play brothers Tonio and Carlo – though we don’t know which way around yet: both are adept at playing villains and neither is known for singing.

Meanwhile Firth seems the most likely choice for the aging Guido, though Strong and Hinds also fit the bill. Tonio is 15 years old at the opening of Rice’s novel, meaning we may see Cooper playing this younger role.

Ford reunites with Firth who led his debut A Single Man and earned an Oscar nomination, as well as Taylor-Johnson who starred in Nocturnal Animals as a supporting character, earning a Golden Globe nomination for his performance. Hoult also starred in A Single Man in a minor role.

Release Date

Cry To Heaven is slated to be released in autumn 2026. It’s a quick turnaround: filming is set to begin in mid-January in London and Rome.