What could possibly be better than Zac Efron? It sounds like a trick question, we know. Surely there's no beating the American acting heartthrob, right? Well, how about two Zac Efrons? Because that's exactly what we'll be getting in Observe & Report writer-director Jody Hill's Famous. A celebrity doppelgänger thriller based on Blake Crouch's same-named NYT bestseller, Hill's movie has, per Deadline's reporting, landed distribution via A24, teeing up a reunion between Efron and the studio behind his wrestling drama The Iron Claw.
Michael Sagol, Sam Esmail, and Chad Hamilton are all aboard to produce the picture, which will see Efron star as Hollywood hunk James Jansen and overeager fan Lance Dunkquist, who just so happen to both look exactly alike. However, whilst the prospect of two Efrons gadding about sounds like a dream come true on paper, in the film — as in Crouch's book — the bigger picture is a little less rosy. In the novel, Dunkquist is a bit of a basement-dwelling loser with an unchecked sociopathic streak, and as such his million dollar face and dogged determination to head to New York and LA in pursuit of Jansen's fame invariably lands the lookalike in several increasingly squirmy — and pretty sinister — scenarios. It'll be very interesting to see how screenwriter Chad Hodge (Wayward Pines) adapts Crouch's deconstruction of the fame monster and Famous' darker plot machinations for the big screen.
We don't have any word yet on who else will be starring alongside Efron and Efron, or when we can expect Famous to reach our screens, but it does join an increasingly buzzy list of upcoming films including The Substance and A Different Man that look to tackle obsession and identity in subversive style. And whilst we're waiting for Famous to get its close-up in cinemas, more brain-bending Blake Crouch adaptation goodness can be found already with Apple TV's Dark Matter, another twisty thriller with a thing or two to say about alternate lives and troublesome doppelgängers.