Zac Efron to star in Swedish Crime Thriller Remake

[WyldeMan45]

If you needed further evidence that Zac Efron is slowly taking over the world, look no further. The actor is set to star and produce a remake of the Swedish thriller Snabba Cash according to Heat Vision. The young actor’s production company, based at Warner Brothers, supposedly just won an aggressive bidding war for the property.

The film sounds like a blend of Traffic and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels as it follows three interweaving, international story lines having to do with drugs and organized crime. Efron will play the lead character, a young man hoping to make a name for himself as a coke smuggler. It’s based on a novel by Jens Lapidus and, along with Efron, will be produced by his partner Jason Barrett, Chuck Roven, Richard Suckle and the producers of the original, Micky Hjorth and Fredrik Wikstrom.

Hit the jump to read more about this deal, Zac Efron and see the trailer for the original Snabba Cash.

According to the Heat Vision, Snabba Cash (which translates to “easy money”) began to gain some heat when it played at the Berlin Film Festival. It opened this January in Sweden and ever since Universal, Summit, Paramount, Fox, The Weinstein Company and Mandate all made bids before Warners bought the project for Efron.

Expect to see this film sooner rather than later because the deal has a “short fuse” clause, which means that if it doesn’t get done soon, the rights go back to the producers.

And say what you want about Zac Efron but the kid is certainly doing his best to break the image he worked so hard to create. Sure, he started his career as a basketball star turned singer in High School Musical, turned that into a singing actor in Hairspray, parlayed that into Matthew Perry turned basketball player in 17 Again and then spread his wings as an actor who sings in Me & Orson Welles, but which each role - love him or hate him - it’s impossible to deny the guy’s charisma and leading man charm. Even if he did choose a lot of similar roles. This one isn’t similar though. Maybe this, along with his next film, Charlie St. Cloud - where he plays a cemetery caretaker who talks to his dead brother - will go along way to changing that.