Deadline Hollywood is reporting that Zac Efron has signed up to star in Fire, an adaptation of Brian Michael Bendis’ graphic novel, which has just been set up at Universal. In the film, the Zef will play a college student who gets recruited by the CIA, only to discover that he’s being trained for a program to create expendable agents. Yep, that would be a bit of a bummer.
Efron has also been busy putting together a deal that’s described as a “Back To The Future-like film that melds two projects”. One of those project is Algorithm, which Warner was developing as a directing vehicle for Forgetting Sarah Mashall helmer Nick Stoller, while the other is a pitch by writers Tim Calpin and Kevin Jakubowski. Unfortunately there’s no news on the plot or what makes it Back To The Future-like. However, as it’s known Zac is a massive Back To the Future fan (it was his favourite movie as a child), and he spoke at one point of wanting to remake the 1985 flick, the fact he’s planning his own homage isn’t much of a surprise.
Efron is said to have been personally involved with putting both films together, as part of his efforts to shed his teen heartthrob image and forge a career as a serious actor with a fanbase that isn’t mainly 10-year-old girls. He’ll next be seen in The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud, where he’ll try and show there’s more to him than we’ve previously seen, as a young man overcome by grief because of the death of his brother. It’s out in cinemas this June.