Jacob Elordi is in talks to star in Scapegoat, Ari Aster's next feature for A24.
Scarlett Johansson is already attached to lead the project. If Elordi's agreement closes, the film would mark the first major screen collaboration between the two actors.
For now, however, Elordi remains in negotiations rather than part of a formally announced locked cast.
The plot is secret, and the rumors already disagree with each other
A24 and Aster have not released an official logline for Scapegoat.
Several descriptions have circulated regardless. One version describes a doctor operating on an internet celebrity. Another calls the project a science-fiction romance. Others characterize it as a more conventional drama.
Those descriptions do not comfortably fit together, and none has been confirmed by the studio.
They should therefore remain speculation rather than being repeated as though one of them were an official synopsis.
Johansson is the major cast member already attached
Johansson's involvement emerged months before the Elordi negotiations.
She reportedly committed after reading Aster's screenplay despite an unusually busy run of projects.
Her current slate includes Mike Flanagan's new Exorcist film and The Batman: Part II.
Scapegoat represents a very different proposition: an original A24 movie whose genre and narrative remain intentionally difficult to categorize from the outside.
Elordi is coming off a career-changing year
Aster's interest arrives after a particularly significant stretch for the Australian actor.
Elordi received an Academy Award nomination for Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein and a Golden Globe nomination for the same performance, along with another Golden Globe nomination for The Narrow Road to the Deep North.
He also completed his run on Euphoria with its third and final season and starred opposite Margot Robbie in Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights.
Ridley Scott's The Dog Stars is another major 2026 release on his slate.
Scapegoat would continue a transition that is already well underway: Elordi has moved from breakout television fame into a period where major filmmakers are repeatedly building features around him.
Ari Aster is staying with A24
Scapegoat continues the filmmaker's long relationship with the studio that released Hereditary.
Aster followed that debut with Midsommar, Beau Is Afraid and Eddington, all through A24.
He wrote and will direct Scapegoat, while Lars Knudsen produces with him through Square Peg.
That partnership has survived unusually different movies in scale, genre and commercial performance, giving Aster room to keep developing original material rather than moving entirely toward established franchises.
Eddington was not a box-office hit
Aster's previous movie already carried an unusually large ensemble including Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone and Austin Butler.
The star power did not translate into a major theatrical result. Eddington earned roughly $14 million against a production budget reported around $25 million.
Scapegoat suggests that performance has not meaningfully reduced either A24's commitment to Aster or actors' willingness to work with him.
This is still a potential pairing, not a finished cast announcement
Johansson and Elordi are enough to make Scapegoat an attention-grabbing project before production details are public.
The status remains straightforward: Johansson is attached, Elordi is negotiating.
Their characters, the exact genre and the official story are still undisclosed.
Aster already has enough names to generate speculation. What he has not provided yet is any reliable indication of what kind of nightmare he plans to put them through.
