Your Dad Is Gonna Love Zac Efron's Next Movie

In case you needed further proof that High School Musical was a hell of a long time ago, all you gotta do is look to Zac Efron's newest role: Efron's going John Grisham with a role in The Associate, with a producing credit to boot. Couple that with R-rated comedies That Awkward Moment and the upcoming Neighbors, and you've got grownup onscreen Efron in a way we haven't quite seen before.

Efron has, of course, been taking roles outside of his teenage origins for a while now: There was The Lucky One, for example, in which he played a marine. But this new run of films feels somewhat different. This might have something to do with John Grisham stories aiming more towards a demographic consisting of largely middle-aged fathers, instead of his longtime fanbase of the teenage daughters of those fathers.

For a taste, here's an overview of the source novel:

Three months after leaving Yale, Kyle (Efron) becomes an associate at the largest law firm in the world, where, in addition to practicing law, he is expected to lie, steal, and take part in a scheme that could send him to prison, if not get him killed. With a cast of characters and villains — from Baxter Tate, a drug-addled trust fund kid and possible rapist, to Dale, a pretty but seemingly quiet former math teacher who shares Kyle's "cubicle" at the law firm, to two of the most powerful and fiercely competitive defense contractors in the country — and featuring all the twists and turns that have made John Grisham the most popular storyteller in the world, The Associate is vintage Grisham.

Certainly a far cry from this:

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