Following his role in Ridley Scott’s adaptation of The Dog Stars, Jacob Elordi is set to star in yet another book-to-screen translation with Norman Mailer’s 1979 Pulitzer-winning The Executioner’s Song.
Per Deadline’s report the Frankenstein Academy Award nominee will also produce the adaptation for United Artists.
Elordi will play Gary Gilmore, whose life, crimes, and death by execution is the subject of Mailer’s book. A cold-blooded murderer who insisted on being executed after being tried and convicted of killing two men in Utah, he battled a legal system trying to keep him alive in order to become the first person put to death in the United States following a four-year ban on Capital Punishment.
The book was previously adapted by Mailer in 1982 for a two-part TV movie starring Tommy Lee Jones, which was subsequently edited down for a theatrical version for European distribution. Critically acclaimed, it won Jones an Emmy Award for his performance as Gary Gilmore.
Next up for Elordi is a starring role opposite Scarlett Johansson in Ari Aster’s A24 project Scapegoat.
Let us know if you’ve read The Executioner’s Song and what you think of Elordi’s casting by heading to our social channels @FlickeringMyth…
