Priscilla: Sofia Coppola chooses Jacob Elordi and Cailee Spaeny as Elvis and Priscilla

Not even three months ago Elvis Presley’s music returned to our theaters with the artist’s biopic directed by Baz Luhrmann and now Sofia Coppola announces that she has found her traces for “Priscilla”, the adaptation of the memoirs Priscilla Beaulieu Presley which she is preparing together with A24. The director chose Jacob Elordi to play Elvis Presley and Cailee Spaeny to play his wife and author of the novel on which the film is based.

Released in 1985, “Elvis and Me” is Presley’s intimate account of his life with Elvis and has quickly become a best-seller at home and abroad. Coppola was commissioned to adapt the script herself and Deadline claims he always had Spaeny in mind as the perfect Priscilla. The writer-director will serve as producer alongside Youree Henley and Lorenzo Mieli for The Apartment, and will also finance the Fremantle Company film and Stage 6 Films. A24 will handle national distribution, Vision Distribution will take it to Italy and Sony Pictures International Releasing to the rest of the world before moving to Sky.

For ‘Priscilla’, Coppola will once again have Philippe Le Sourd as director of photography, Stacey Battat as costume designer, Sarah Flack as editor of the film and Tamara Deverell as production designer. No other cast members have been announced, but filming will begin in Toronto this fall. The director also has “The Custom of the Country” in development, a miniseries adapting Edith Wharton’s 1913 novel about a Midwestern girl trying to climb the social ladder in New York.

New but familiar faces

To Elordi, the new King after Austin Butler’s huge work on “Elvis”, We met him in Netflix’s teen love movie “First Dates” and we have since seen him in his two sequels, ‘The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee’, ‘2 Hearts’ and ‘Deep Waters’, as well as of course playing the complicated Nate Jacobs in ‘Euphoria’.

On the other hand, Spaeny will seem less popular, but he has starred in films like “Pacific Rim: Insurrection”; ‘Bad Times at the El Royale’ where she played Dakota Johnson’s sister; in ‘A Gender Issue’ as Felicity Jones’ daughter; in ‘The Vice of Power’; as one of the protagonists of the new version of ‘Youth and Witches’, and in the series “Devs”, “Mare of Easttown” and “The First Lady” as Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.