After playing Euphoria bad boy Nate Jacobs, you can’t blame Jacob Elordi for steering away from darker roles for a while. But, the DCU is set to offer a rich pantheon of projects, and the actor may well have turned down Superman Legacy for the wrong reason.
While the Zack Snyder-led DCEU was pretty bleak in tone and lacked the vibrancy of the MCU, James Gunn’s vision for the burgeoning DCU promises that will change. Specifically, his plan for Superman Legacy is to showcase a more hopeful version of the iconic DC character.
So, something about Elordi’s recent admission about the upcoming DC movie just doesn’t add up. “They asked me to read for Superman,” the actor told GQ. “That was immediately, ‘No, thank you.’ That’s too much. That’s too dark for me.”
Assuming this is indeed Superman Legacy he’s referring to — Elordi would have been no older than 15 when Man of Steel was being put together — this straight up refusal to even consider the part does suggest Elordi didn’t really understand what he was turning down.
I’m not saying Elordi needs the DCU to help his career. Far from it, in fact. Playing a Euphoria character has led to roles in the new movies from Sofia Coppola and Emerald Fennell — Priscilla and Saltburn, respectively — as well as starring alongside Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas in last year’s Deep Water.
The thing is, anyone who is clued up on Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters knows that Gunn and the gang are desperate to make sure this new Superman is tonally very different to Henry Cavill’s run in the role. I suspect what Elordi has done here is tarred the DCU with the same brush as its predecessors, and assumed every superhero movie from this side of the cinematic universe will be gritty and gloomy.
It’s a shame, really. Elordi certainly has the look of Clark Kent/Kal-El nailed. Tall, dark, and handsome are words most people would have no trouble using to describe the actor, and he’s also a very talented young man. That said, I’m not so sure he would have been absolutely right for this particular iteration of Supes. Funnily enough, I think Elordi himself is too good at the mean and moody to put a positive spin on our favorite Kryptonian.
Who knows, maybe we’ll see Elordi take on a role as a DC villain one day? Until then, we’ve a guide to watching the DC movies in order to help you explore the franchise, and there’s also the Aquaman 2 release date coming up. Or, if you’re more concerned with Nate Jacobs, you can also find out what we know about the Euphoria season 3 release date.