From clean-cut high school basketball player to serial killer. Zac Efron made his debut as Ted Bundy in the first trailer for Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, which was released on Friday, January 25.
Efron woos Lily Collins’ Liz Kloepfer as the clip begins. “When I feel his love, I feel like I’m on top of the world,” she tells a friend.
Liz confronts Ted at one point when she sees a sketch linked to a missing girl in the newspaper. “I am innocent,” he insists. “You don’t actually believe this garbage, do you?”
Collins’ character continues to hang on, even as the murderer is put behind bars. (In the process, the High School Musical star, 31, strips down and shows off his chiseled abs.) “I wanna come see you,” she tells him before the two embrace upon their reunion.
“This case is about catching a monster,” Jim Parsons, who plays attorney Larry Simpson, tells a jury, to which Efron replies: “Ladies and gentlemen, I am that innocent suspect.”
However, even as Ted grins and denies his involvement, he beats one woman over the head with a crowbar and drags a body through the snow in the trailer. “I’m more popular than Disney World,” he brags as media interest in his case grows.
“I’m gonna get back to plotting my escape here,” Efron says as the trailer ends and Ted runs away.
John Malkovich, Kaya Scodelario, Angela Sarafyan, Haley Joel Osment and Jeffrey Donovan also star in the flick.
Bundy was a notorious serial killer who murdered women during the ‘70s. He was executed in January 1989 at age 42 after confessing to 30 homicides.
Efron and Collins, 29, shared a brief romance in 2012. A source told Us Weekly upon news of their split that June that “they were never serious,” adding: “It was just a casual thing.”
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile will premiere at Sundance Film Festival on Saturday, January 26.
