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Entertainment

16th May 2017

Zac Efron to play one of America’s most notorious serial killers

Darragh Berry

High School musical murder?

Zac Efron has most definitely moved away from his Disney days and his latest role cements his breakaway from the High School Musical image that made him a star.

The 29-year-old is set to play notorious serial killer Ted Bundy in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile.

This is not the first time Efron has been involved in a thriller of this kind before. In 2012, he featured in The Paperboy, which followed the story of death-row inmate Hillary Van Wetter.

Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker, Joe Berlinger, will direct the story of Bundy as penned by Michael Werwie.

Berlinger is best known for co-directing, with the late Bruce Sinofsky, the Paradise Lost documentaries that eventually freed the West Memphis 3 from a wrongful murder conviction, as well as Metallica: Some Kind of Monster.

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile will be told from the perspective of Bundy’s longtime girlfriend, Elizabeth Kloepfer, who denied the accusations against Bundy for years before ultimately turning him into the police.

Bundy confessed to 30 homicides committed in seven states between 1974 and 1978 but the true number of his victims is still unknown and could possibly be much higher.

Filming is set to begin on 9 October.