Zac Efron may have been a happy-go-lucky chap, singing and dancing away in his last role for The Greatest Showman, but it looks like his next project will be much darker.

The actor is playing Ted Bundy in the new film Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile. Bundy was an American serial killer, kidnapper, rapist, burglar, and necrophile who assaulted and murdered numerous young women and girls during the 1970s. So it’s not exactly High School Musical or Baywatch territory.

The new movie is told from the perspective of Bundy’s longtime girlfriend Elizabeth Kloepfer – who refused to believe his crimes for years – and has entered production.

Efron himself shared the first image of himself in costume as Bundy, and it would seem the filmmakers are trying to recreate the iconic mug shot from the criminal's 1975 arrest in Salt Lake City, Utah:

 

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile will also star John Malkovich as Edward Cowart, the judge who presided over Bundy's trial, while Lily Collins stars as Kloepfer. Collins also shared a first look at her character: