Jacob Elordi will star as Gary Gilmore, the convicted murderer who insisted on his own execution, in a new adaptation of The Executioner’s Song. The role also marks Elordi’s first hands-on producing job, bringing the story of a man who fought to have his death sentence carried out back to the screen.
Gilmore was convicted of killing 2 men in Utah. His insistence on being executed, even as the legal system sought to keep him alive, made his case a media sensation. He was executed in 1977.
The new film draws on Norman Mailer’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1979 book. Tommy Lee Jones played Gilmore in the 1982 adaptation, whose director, Lawrence Schiller, will return as an executive producer.
United Artists has acquired the project’s rights. Elordi, his manager Matt Vioral and Sherry Marsh are producing alongside Scott Stuber and Nick Nesbitt, who are producing for the company.
