Is Jacob Elordi the New James Bond? What the Reports Say

UPDATE — 24 October 2026: This story has moved since 21 October. Deadline reported on 22 October that final screen tests were offered to Jack Lowden, Callum Turner and Josh O’Connor, plus one unnamed actor, and The Hollywood Reporter reported that Jacob Elordi is not among those testing. That contradicts the 21 October Sneider expectation reported below. Amazon MGM has still not announced a casting. Read the 21 October report below as the earlier claim it was, not as a confirmed outcome.

Published 22 October 2026 | Updated 24 October 2026

Is Jacob Elordi the new James Bond? As of October 22, 2026, nobody at Amazon MGM Studios has said so. But on October 21, Hollywood insider Jeff Sneider dropped the biggest casting report of the Bond 26 era: the screen-testing process is complete, Jacob Elordi and Jack Lowden were part of it, and Sneider fully expects director Denis Villeneuve to choose Elordi — with an announcement coming “very, very soon.” This article separates what was actually reported from what the internet invented, so you know exactly what is rumor and what is fact.

What Jeff Sneider Actually Reported — Word for Word

Before the headlines, the source itself. Jeff Sneider, the Hollywood scooper behind The InSneider newsletter, published his Bond 26 report on October 21, 2026; ComicBook amplified it the same day, and it is the single origin point for every Elordi story circulating right now.

Writing in his newsletter, as quoted by Brit Brief, Sneider said:

“I’m hearing that Amazon MGM has completed the testing process for James Bond… I do know that Jacob Elordi and Jack Lowden were part of it. I fully expect the studio and director Denis Villeneuve to choose Elordi… Stay tuned, as we may get word about 007 very soon.”

Read that quote carefully, because the wording matters. Sneider reports two hard pieces of information: testing is done, and Elordi and Lowden tested. Everything after that — “I fully expect” — is his own prediction, not a confirmed casting. So is he the new James Bond? The honest version: a credible scooper says the process is finished and expects Elordi to win. That is a strong signal, not a studio announcement.

5 Reported Facts

Here is the situation broken into five facts that separate the reporting from the hype around a single question: is Elordi the reported frontrunner?

1. The screen tests are reportedly finished — and two names were in the room. Sneider says Amazon MGM “has completed the testing process” and names Jacob Elordi and Jack Lowden as participants. This is the firmest part of the report: the testing phase that Page Six described in September 2026 appears to be over.
2. Sneider’s own wording is “expect,” not “confirmed.” His exact phrase is “I fully expect the studio and director Denis Villeneuve to choose Elordi” That is a prediction from a well-connected reporter, not a sighting of a signed contract. Coverage that states flatly that Elordi “has been cast” is overstating the source.
3. Amazon MGM has said absolutely nothing. The studio’s standing position, given when it opened the official casting search in June 2026, is: “While we don’t plan to comment on specific details during the casting process, we’re excited to share more news with 007 fans as soon as the time is right.” That silence tells us nothing either way — but it means Elordi is not officially Bond.
4. The betting market moved hard, but it is not a verdict. On 21 October 2026, the Kalshi “yes” contract jumped roughly 10 points in a day to about 17% implied probability. Read that number honestly: 17% means the market still thinks it is far more likely than not that Elordi is not announced. It treats him as a live contender, not a coronation.
5. This is still a single-source story — and one viral “announcement” is fake. No second outlet has independently confirmed Sneider’s claim; every story traces back to him. And a widely shared page from evrimagaci.org’s “Grand Pinnacle Tribune” claiming an April 1, 2026 official announcement is an April Fools joke — not a real report.

Read Also: Bond 26: Everything We Know — Release Date, Director, Cast & News (2026)

Who Else Tested? Jack Lowden and the Rest of the Field

Sneider named only two actors as participants in the completed testing process: Elordi and Lowden. But the field around them has been unusually crowded, and Lowden’s case is far from dead.

Jack Lowden, the Slow Horses star, has been the bookmakers’ favourite through much of October. Author Richard Osman said on his podcast that Lowden was “strongly considered,” and his co-star Gary Oldman publicly said the role “has been cast” — a remark Oldman later walked back in Toronto as something he had only heard as a rumor. The insider signals around Lowden have been the most specific of the entire cycle.

Beyond the pair, September 2026 reporting from Page Six described a wider testing pool of Jack Barton, Callum Turner, Paul Mescal and Harris Dickinson. And not everyone in the industry buys the Elordi momentum: a casting-director source quoted in trade coverage argued that neither Elordi nor Turner fits the reported brief.

Still, Sneider gives Elordi the edge — the question is whether that long-running suspicion is genuine inside knowledge or a rumor that simply outlasted its competitors. And if the eventual answer to the casting question turns out to be no, Lowden’s case — the most specific insider signals of the entire cycle — makes him the obvious next name in line.

Why Jacob Elordi Fits the Reported Brief

Strip away the rumor and Elordi maps onto the reported studio brief with unusual neatness: a British or Commonwealth male in his late twenties to early thirties — a fresh face who can carry the franchise for a decade or more.

Born on June 26, 1997, Elordi is 29 — ranking alongside George Lazenby, who was 29 when he took the role, as one of the youngest actors ever to become 007. At a reported 6 feet 5 inches, he would also be the tallest Bond in franchise history, three inches taller than Sean Connery, and only the second Australian after Lazenby.

His résumé has the range the role demands. After Netflix’s The Kissing Booth trilogy, he played Nate Jacobs in HBO’s Euphoria, Elvis Presley in Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, starred opposite Barry Keoghan in Saltburn, and earned an Oscar nomination as the Creature in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein. He played Heathcliff in Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, released on 13 February 2026.

Then there is the director’s taste. Sneider’s aside about Villeneuve’s well-known taste for young leading men is doing real work in the prediction. Villeneuve built Dune around Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya; an ambitious director starting a decade-long franchise has every reason to pick an actor he can shape, not a finished star he must accommodate. Put together, it is easy to see why so many fans already answer the casting question with a yes — even if the studio has not said it yet.

The Backlash: Why Some Fans Are Not Sold

The reaction to the Sneider report was immediate and, in places, brutal. One nickname captured the mood: “Temu007,” a jab suggesting a cut-price imitation of the real thing.

Three objections keep surfacing: nationality (a loud section of the fandom insists the British secret agent should be played by a Brit, even though Lazenby’s precedent answers that directly), height (at 6’5”, some argue a secret agent who stands out in every crowd cannot blend in one), and age and image (at 29, with Euphoria still his defining role, some cannot yet picture him in the tuxedo).

History offers a caution: when Daniel Craig — blond, 37, and best known as a character actor — was announced in October 2005, the “Blond Bond” backlash raged for months. Casino Royale silenced it within a year. Fan fury at the unconfirmed Elordi chatter is a poor predictor of how a finished performance lands.

Read Also: Who Will Be the Next James Bond? Frontrunners, Odds & Everything We Know

When Could We Know for Sure?

The timing signals point one way — soon, but on no guaranteed date. Sneider says “we may get word about 007 very, very soon,” and producer Amy Pascal told Deadline in August 2026 that “the end of the year is a good bet” for the announcement. Screenwriter Steven Knight has said casting is finalized internally, with his first draft complete.

The production calendar adds pressure: Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Three arrives on December 18, 2026, and Bond 26 is reported to be targeting a 2027 production start ahead of a 2028 release. The cameras cannot roll without a leading man, which gives the announcement a hard practical deadline.

But note what nobody has done: Amazon MGM has not set a date or confirmed even that a decision is final. “Very, very soon” is a reporter’s expectation; “end of the year” is a producer’s informed estimate. Until the studio’s own press release lands, treat every timeline — and every answer to the casting question — as likely, not certain.

Read Also: When Will the Next James Bond Be Announced?

Our Take

Here is our honest read: the Sneider report is the most specific casting signal of the entire Bond 26 cycle, and he is a scooper with a real track record — you do not casually name two test participants if you are inventing things. The “testing is complete” half is the part to take seriously; the “I fully expect” half is informed speculation.

That said, the Elordi rumor keeps surviving contact with reality in a way most casting gossip does not. He matches the reported brief on age, freshness and franchise-longevity math, and the single-source problem cuts both ways: nobody with real knowledge has denied it either, which in a town that loves a debunk is itself mildly interesting.

Frequently Asked Questions

Our Final Answer

Elordi was the best-sourced name on 21 October, when Sneider reported completed tests and said he expected Villeneuve to choose the Australian actor. The 22 October reports changed the picture: Deadline described final screen tests for Lowden, Turner and O’Connor plus one unnamed actor, and The Hollywood Reporter reported that Elordi is not testing. Nothing is settled until Amazon MGM announces its choice, and this article will be updated when it does.

Sources

• ComicBook report on Jeff Sneider’s Bond 26 scoop
• Fact-check explainer on the Elordi rumor versus the Kalshi market odds
• CBR on the reported final Bond screen tests
• UNILAD on the final actors reportedly screen-testing for 007
• Malay Mail round-up of the 22–24 October screen-test reports
• NME on the Bond casting rumors

Earlier claims in this article are attributed in the text to Page Six, Richard Osman, Gary Oldman and Deadline; no direct link to those originals is included where none was verified.