According to Deadline, Zac Efron (Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile) is set to star in the comedy King of the Jungle. The film is based on a Wired article about McAfee Antivirus creator John McAfee, who isolated himself in a jungle compound after becoming rich.
The film has been in development for a long time, with Seth Rogen and Michael Keaton set to star at one point. Now the project will be directed by Crazy, Stupid, Love’s Glenn Ficarra and John Requa from a script by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (American Crime Story).
Efron will play Wired jounralist Ari Furman, accepting “what he thinks is a run-of-the-mill assignment to interview McAfee, but once he arrives in Belize, he finds himself pulled into McAfee’s escalating paranoia, slippery reality and murder.”
King of the Jungle is based on Joshua Davis’ Wired article about “the wild true story of rogue tech magnate John McAfee, creator of the McAfee Antivirus software, who cashed-in his fortune, left civilization and moved to the jungle in Belize. There, he set up a Colonel Kurtz-like compound of guns, sex and madness.”
