10 Actors Who Just Quit Huge Movies

10. Paul Mescal - The Dog Stars

Providing yet further proof that Ridley Scott apparently doesn't sleep, the 87-year-old filmmaker is due to shoot two new movies this year - the Bee Gees biopic You Should Be Dancing and, before that, an adaptation of Peter Heller's 2012 post-apocalyptic novel The Dog Stars.

Scott's Gladiator II star Paul Mescal was originally announced to be playing the lead role in the former, of a man who seeks out the source of a mysterious transmission in the wake of a world-ravaging pandemic.

However, last December Scott himself seemed well aware that Mescal would likely end up departing the project, noting that the actor was plenty busy preparing to play Paul McCartney in Sam Mendes' upcoming four-film Beatles biopic saga.

And indeed, by early January Mescal had taken leave of The Dog Stars, with another hot up-and-coming actor, Jacob Elordi, swiftly being drafted in to take the part.

Elordi's certainly a solid replacement, and given that he just finished working on Emerald Fennell's new Wuthering Heights adaptation, his schedule seems to have cleared just in time to start shooting with Scott in the coming weeks.