In something of a departure from his frequent roles as a dippy beefcake in comedies like Baywatch, Neighbours and Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, Zac Efron is next set to play serial killer, rapist, kidnapper and necrophiliac Ted Bundy in director Joe Berlinger’s upcoming Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile.
Of course, Bundy is one of the most notorious serial killers of the modern age, confessing to thirty homicides of women across seven states between 1974 and 1978, and was noted for his brutality and psychopathic charisma. One of the reasons he was such a successful serial killer was that he didn’t fit the ‘creepy’ stereotype, with his young female victims easily falling into this charismatic, handsome man’s trust.
All this makes Zac Efron an inspired bit of casting and now, we’ve got two more stills from the movie showing the actor in character as Bundy in some of the most notorious moments across his life. You can check them both out in the gallery down below, along with a few that surfaced earlier this month.
In one pic, we see Bundy defending himself in court, with his enormous ego getting kicks out of playing to a vast televised audience. In the other, we see him incarcerated at a later date. It looks as if the the film will take us through his grisly killing years right up to his 1989 execution then, hopefully providing an interesting perspective on the darkest corners of the human mind.
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile also stars John Malkovich, Jim Parsons, Lily Collins, Haley Joel Osment and, in a strange twist, Metallica’s James Hetfield. No word on a release date just yet, but we’ll keep you posted on the status of this promising project as more comes to light.