Carol: 2? Blanchett and Mara Set Photos Captivate Lesbian Fans

Oscar-winner Guillermo del Tormo's Nightmare Alleyis currently shooting. And while the film boasts a heavy-hitting cast that includes Bradley Cooper, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, queer women on social media are losing it over shots from the set of a reunion of Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara that are uncannily close in tone and energy to what fans are calling Carol: 2.

The film from the Shape of Water director tells the story of a dangerously manipulative carny (Cooper) who beds his psychiatrist (Blanchett), who allegedly has more to hide than he does. Mara, Dafoe, and Ron Perlman are all part of the carnival, while Richard Jenkins plays a wealthy industrialist.

Carol, Todd Haynes's adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's 1952 novel The Price of Salt, starred Blanchett and Mara as women who fall in love in a time when it was all kept very close to the vest. Despite the tenor of the era, Carol does feature a hopeful ending that implies a future together for Carol and Therese. Fans of the film have latched onto the photos of Blanchett and Mara in Nightmare Alley as if they were signs of Carol and Therese's ongoing life together and are calling it Carol: 2. And the tweets are signs that there's definitely interest in a sequel to Carol.

Here are some of the reactions.