Jacob Elordi Is a Prisoner of War in Justin Kurzel’s ‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North’ First Look
It’s officially Jacob Elordi’s year.
The rising star has a slew of projects being released in 2025, including Justin Kurzel and Shaun Grant’s buzzy limited series “The Narrow Road to the Deep North,” which will be premiering at Berlinale 2025 as a Special Gala.
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The sales title series was in development for years at Fremantle before Elordi’s casting was announced in 2022; the project was a Sony Pictures Television production. The official logline reads: “A celebrated World War II hero is haunted by his experiences in a Japanese prisoner of war camp and memories of an affair that took place just before the war in this adaptation of Richard Flanagan’s 2013 Booker Prize-winning novel.”
Elordi plays lead character Dorrigo Evans, an Australian army surgeon imprisoned at a POW camp. The original novel jumps across multiple periods of Evans’ life, from his affair as a young man with his uncle’s wife to his experiences in the war to his days as an elderly man consumed with regret, much like in Elordi’s 2024 film, “Oh, Canada.”
Odessa Young, Ciarán Hinds, Olivia DeJonge, and Simon Baker co-star in the limited series.
“The Narrow Road to the Deep North” was written by Grant and directed by Kurzel. The duo have previously worked together on multiple films, including “Snowtown,” “True History of the Kelly Gang,” and “Nitram.”
“It is great for Shaun and I to be collaborating with a talented actor like Jacob,” Kurzel said in a press statement about the series. “’The Narrow Road to the Deep North’ needs a powerful leading presence, and it feels like this young actor and this extraordinary book have met each other at the right time.”
Kurzel and Grant both executive produce the series with Rachel Gardner and Jo Porter, the managing director of Curio Pictures. The limited series is one of the first projects from Curio, Sony Television Picture’s Australia-based banner.
Kurzel has Netflix series “Black Rabbit” in the works, and recently debuted feature “The Order.”
Meanwhile, Elordi has a stacked production slate: The star is set to reprise his role as Nate in the third season of HBO’s “Euphoria,” and also will now lead Ridley Scott’s “The Dog Stars,” which will go into production in April. “The Dog Stars,” which is another novel adaptation, has Elordi playing a pilot who befriends an ex-Marine gunman in a post-apocalyptic world where an unnamed pandemic has decimated American society. The film is based on Peter Heller’s 2012 novel, and will be adapted by Mark L. Smith (“Twisters,” “The Revenant,” “The Boys in the Boat”) and Christopher Wilkinson (“Ali”). Smith and Cliff Roberts are producing “The Dog Stars,” along with Scott’s Scott Free production banner.
“The Dog Stars” was announced at 20th Century Studios with Scott’s “Gladiator II” actor Paul Mescal in the lead role. Mescal had to exit the film after he was cast as Paul McCartney in Sam Mendes’ four-part Beatles biopic; Elordi is rumored to be replacing Mescal in “The Dog Stars,” much like he did for Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming “Frankenstein” after Andrew Garfield exited the feature.
Elordi will also lead Emerald Fennell and Warner Bros.’ upcoming “Wuthering Heights” adaptation alongside Margot Robbie, and star in Daniel Minahan’s drama “On Swift Horses” with Daisy Edgar-Jones, Diego Calva, Will Poulter, and Sasha Calle.
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