Zac Efron to star in Me and Orson Welles

By M&C Movie News Jan 18, 2008, 15:16 GMT

Zac Efron - 11th Annual Hollywood Awards - Arrivals - The Beverly Hilton Hotel - Beverly Hilton Hotel © Albert L. Ortega / PR Photos

“High School Musical” star Zac Efron has signed for a role in the upcoming Me and Orson Welles – which is the big screen adaptation of the period coming-of-age novel by Robert Kaplow. Richard Linklater is scheduled to direct the film.

Christian McKay has signed for the role of Welles and Ben Chaplin (Water Horse: The Legend of the Deep) will handle the role of English film and stage actor George Coulouris.

The film’s script was written by Holly Gent Palmo (production coordinator on Linklater's Dazed and Confused) and Vince Palmo (who has worked as first assistant director on several of the Linklater 's films). Anne Carl is set to produce the film. It is being independently financed, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The film is set in 1937, and the plot follows a high school student (Efron) who is noticed by Orson Welles one late night while he is strolling the streets of New York near the soon to be opened Mercury Theatre.

Efron is set to return to shooting the New Line comedy Seventeen. He was forced to take a break from filming while he recovered from his appendectomy. He is scheduled to shoot the Welles film in March (with locations in New York, London, and the Isle of Man) and then return to Disney for High School Musical 3: Senior Year – which will start filming in April and will be the first film in the franchise to receive a big screen release.