We have the ‘Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman’ script and it’s full of drugs, guns, thugs, betrayal and blackmail! Zac — are you ready for your edgiest role yet?

We just finished reading Zac Efron‘s new movie script and let’s just say it’s not exactly High School Musical 4 material. Last Friday we found out Zac will be replacing Shia LaBeouf as the male lead in The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman. Now, after reading the screenplay, we are even more intrigued by a film that promises drugs, blackmail, gunfights and a torture scene that is heartbreaking and gruesome at the same time.

Plot: Zac plays Charlie Countryman, a guy in his 20s who has to take his mother off life support after she slips into a coma. Throughout the movie Charlie pops pills and does ecstasy, both of which make him hallucinate. While hallucinating, the spirit of his mother, Mary, tells him to travel to Bucharest, Romania. On his flight to Budapest, Hungary where he is supposed to connect to his flight to Bucharest, the man next to him dies. The spirit of that man asks him to find his daughter Gabi, and deliver a Chicago Cubs batting helmet to her. Charlie falls in love with Gabi, a Hungarian heroin addict cello player and former stripper, whose ex-husband Nigel physically and sexually abuses her. Nigel is also a crime boss, who is fighting with another crime boss Draco over a tape of him committing genocide. Charlie tries to save Gabi from Nigel multiple times, to his detriment, and the movie is about the physical and emotional challenges he faces in the name of love.

Memorable Moments:

• Gabi shoots Charlie in the opening scene, where he is held dangling over a bridge by two thugs
• Charlie drops F-bombs throughout the film, gets tased, does ecstasy multiple times, gets hit by a taxi, and has sex with two different girls
• Charlie and two of his friends, one of whom is a male porn star, go to a strip club (Zac already has research on this) and can’t afford their bill so they are threatened by Draco, the club manager
• Charlie gets upset when a Hungarian gas station attendant says he doesn’t speak English and Charlie holds a gun up to his head to force him to speak. He is caught on tape terrorizing the attendant, and then goes to jail for it
• Gabi, the girl Charlie is in love with, is holding a genoicde tape hostage from Nigel and Draco’s thugs in order to use it for blackmail
• Nigel, Gabi’s ex-husband, rapes Gabi after drugging her with heroin, and tapes Charlie’s eyes open so he is forced to watch as torture

The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman will be a radical change for Zac, but the script is very interesting and we think he has the dynamic acting skills to pull it off. Zac has said in the past that he hopes to be like Leonardo DiCaprio, and this role could propel him in that direction. As of now there are no directors attached to the screenplay, written by Matt Drake. Are you excited to see Zac in this film? And who should be cast as Gabi?

Lorena O’Neil with reporting by Russ Weakland and Phoebe Abraham