Extremely Wicked Shockingly Evil And Vile

Sundance is over, but the deals are still coming. It was a huge year for the films premiering at Sundance.

Amazon paid $13 million and $14 million for Late Night and Brittany Runs a Marathon. They also purchased Shia LaBeouf’s coming-of-age drama Honey Boy for $5 million. Netflix wasn’t quite as busy as Amazon this year, but they did close a deal this week to purchase Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile starring Zac Efron as Ted Bundy.

According to the reports, they acquired the U.S. rights and some international rights to distribute the film for a cool $9 million. They were reportedly battling Lionsgate and STXfilms.

“Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile takes the unique track of telling the Ted Bundy story from the point of view of his longtime girlfriend, Elizabeth Kloepfer, played in the film by Lily Collins. Instead of sensationalizing Bundy’s crimes, the fictional account aims to show how one could feel duped by a loved one, and why reconciling the reported crimes with the man that Liz knew and loved was so difficult.”

No release date has been announced, but sources say Netflix plans to give this movie a prime awards season release date, which means Zac ‘High School Musical’ Efron might be up for an Oscar nomination this time next year. That’s pretty dope.

Zac Efron started his career as a Disney kid. He starred in the High School Musical franchise and a lot of people thought his career would end when the franchise died. But it didn’t. In fact, he’s been one of the most successful actors coming out of the franchise.

Just recently he starred in The Greatest Showman and Baywatch, and now he’s getting a bit darker with the upcoming film Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile.

Efron is playing Ted Bundy in the movie, and on Wednesday (Jan. 17th) he shared the photo you see below. It’s the first image of him dressed up as the infamous serial killer…

The director of the project, Joe Berlinger, revealed that filming was set to start on Thursday. CNN provides us with more details:

“The movie will tell the story of Bundy’s horrifying murders from the perspective of his girlfriend Okja, played by Lily Collins. Bundy admitted to killing at least 30 individuals between 1974 and 1978, although the number is thought to be much higher.”

The script, which was written by Michael Werwie, landed on the Black List and earned Michael the Nicholls screenwriting award, so we know everyone is working with great source material.

Hopefully everyone can preserve it and make something truly special.