Though he cut his teeth on Disney’s High School Musical franchise and spent a handful of years starring in teen-targeted trash like 17 Again, Zac Efron is quickly becoming respected as an A-list actor. He drew praise for his lead roles in thriller The Paperboy and JFK assassination drama Parkland, then earned the best reviews of his career last month for toplining the raunchy comedy Neighbors. Now, according to multiple insiders on the project, Efron is in negotiations for another lead role, this time in a movie about an aspiring DJ.
Written by MTV’s Catfish co-host Max Joseph and Meaghan Oppenheimer (whose drama script The Remains made the 2013 Black List), the film will follow an up-and-coming DJ who struggles to put together his first hit track. Joseph is set to make his directorial debut on the movie, following his award-winning “Follow the Frog” commercial for Rainforest Alliance and the well-received SXSW documentary short “12 Years of DFA Records: Too Old to be New, Too New to be Classic.”
Other stars are expected to be announced soon, as Joseph is in the process of auditioning hot young actors and actresses for supporting roles. He’s hoping to kick off shooting next month in Los Angeles.
If Efron becomes involved, it will be exciting to see him take on a coming-of-age story set within the music industry. The actor has shown us his talent multiple times over the past few years (never more successfully than in Neighbors), and the fact that he started out as a Disney star but made it to where he is today just speaks to how hard the actor works on every project he takes on.