Jacob Elordi set to replace Paul Mescal in The Dog Stars

Jacob Elordi is set to play the lead role in The Dog Stars credit:Bang Showbiz
Jacob Elordi is set to play the lead role in The Dog Stars credit:Bang Showbiz

Jacob Elordi is in talks to lead the cast of 'The Dog Stars'.

The 27-year-old actor is set to replace Paul Mescal in Ridley Scott's apocalyptic thriller after the 'Gladiator II' actor was forced to depart the project due to scheduling conflicts with Sam Mendes' Beatles anthology – in which he is rumoured to be playing Paul McCartney.

Jacob will portray the character of Hig in 'The Dog Stars', which is set in a near future where American society has been decimated by a pandemic.

Hig is a civilian pilot who lives a lonely life on an abandoned Colorado airbase with his dog and a tough ex-marine. The two men are completely different but rely on each other to fend off roaming invaders.

When a random radio transmission comes from his 1956 Cessna, the voice sparks a hope from deep within that a better life exists outside their tightly controlled perimeter. Risking everything, he flies past his point of no return and follows the static-broken trail.

Mark L. Smith has penned the script for the movie, which will be the next project that Ridley will helm.

Elordi starred in the movies 'Saltburn' and 'Priscilla' in 2023 and admits that the differing roles of Felix Catton and Elvis Presley "meshed together" in his head as he made the pictures concurrently.

Asked if the parts had anything in common, he told Vanity Fair: "That's a funny question. I made 'Priscilla' three weeks after 'Saltburn'. So they're strangely meshed together in my head because I'd shoot all day in London, and then I'd go home to my Elvis cave, which was my hotel room, which was sort of all pictures of Priscilla.

"But I think, other than both of them having a kind of ginormous house between Saltburn and Graceland, I'm not sure if Felix has too much of Elvis Presley in it."

However, Jacob was grateful for the lack of time between the two films as he would have "overthought" the process otherwise.

The Australian actor said: "I think that the short time is what made it work for me in my head. If I'd had too long to worry about it, I would have been in a bit of strife because I would have overthought the whole thing.

"I had to do this British accent in 'Saltburn', so I got to lose that really quickly when I went into the Memphis drawl. But having the three weeks just gave me not a lot of time to worry about it."

Jacob added: "But at the time before I'd started both of them, I thought it was going to be impossible because I'd gotten them around the same time."