Zac Efron (whose name if you repeat it enough starts to sound weirdly sci fi), will grace the nation’s screens this Friday in “Charlie St. Cloud,” a yachting drama about a guy who has to choose between his relationship with a dead brother only he can see, and the girl he wants. Alrighty then. But pending that film’s success or failure, he is busy lining up a couple of projects that will help him to complete the awkward and pitfall-strewn transition from teen idol to young leading man. Having already taken his first tentative steps outside the day-glo musical genre that brought him to the attention of the world’s newly-hormonal teenagers, with the likes of “Me and Orson Welles” and the obligatory age-swap comedy “17 Again,” (whose director, Burr Steers also helmed “Charlie St. Cloud”) it remains to be seen if the actor possesses the chops to maintain any kind of A-list longevity.
And he seems to understand this pretty well, having already made a bid to be taken seriously by setting up his own production company, (somewhat undermined by its name — Ninjas Runnin’ Wild — which, like a hastily-chosen tattoo, is possibly a folly of youth that he’ll live to regret) and at least steering away from the romcom territory that so obviously beckons in an effort to prove his range. Though not steering too far leftfield, as first up there’s an adaptation of Nicholas Sparks’ “The Lucky One” in which Efron is to play a soldier who carries a picture of a girl he doesn’t know into war with him, which then becomes his lucky charm. Sent home he goes in search of the girl herself and mushy, gross, love-y stuff no doubt ensues. We’re not fans of previous Sparks adaptations (“The Notebook,” “Dear John,” “Nights in Rodanthe,” “The Last Song”) but he certainly seems to have a stock in trade in soft-focus romances and for Efron, it seems like a simple progression that his female fans who were 12 when the first “High School Musical” came out can easily buy in to.
More interesting, perhaps, is the next project on his slate. Entitled “Die in a Gunfight” it’s a “high-octane” script written by hot newcomers Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari, and is described by Vulture as a “Tarantino-esque blend of ‘Gossip Girl,’ ‘True Romance,’ and ‘Romeo and Juliet.’” Which, ok, sounds pretty dire too (as well as rather redundant since Tarantino wrote “True Romance”), but we can’t help but hope that it might be better than that summation makes it sound, given that everyone concerned has so much to prove, and that it was on the strength of this script that Barrer and Ferrari, fresh out of NYU, were snapped up for representation by WME. It should also be the biggest stretch so far for Efron, as he plays a “deadbeat underachiever” (but presumably one with great hair) who falls for the daughter of his powerful father’s arch nemesis. Producer Mark Gordon is attached, and while there’s no studio involved as yet the combo of Efron and a hyped screenwriting duo should make it an easy enough sell.
