Sometimes you hear about an actor signing on to a film and think, "well, they're clearly just in it to go to a holiday location on someone else's dime" – Adam Sandler did that a lot. Yet we wonder whether Zac Efron's experience in Australia for new thriller Gold will be quite as much fun.
Anthony Hayes is on to direct and co-star, having written the script with Polly Smyth. The film will follow two strangers traveling through a desert who stumble across the biggest gold nugget ever found. They hatch a plan to protect and excavate their bounty with one man leaving to secure the necessary equipment. The other man remains and must endure harsh desert elements, ravenous wild dogs and mysterious intruders, whilst battling the sinking suspicion that he has been abandoned to his own fate.
The cameras will be rolling for this one in Australia this month. "This is an exciting, gripping and timely tale about greed, humanity, who we are, what we’ve done to the world and where we are heading if we aren’t careful," says Hayes. "To have Zac Efron as my main man on this film is an absolute gift and to see what he is creating already is like nothing we’ve seen from him before. I can’t wait to deliver this bold, visceral and cinematic film to audiences all around the world."
Efron recently signed on to a remake of Firestarter, which will see him taking on the role of the dad to a child with pyrokinetic powers.