Zac Efron in talks to star alongside Hugh Jackman in P.T. Barnum biopic

Last Updated on July 31, 2021

P.T. Barnum was the king of generating hype. In 1842 he used a variety of methods to drum up enormous excitement for what he called the Fiji mermaid. Over the few days it was displayed, crowds came out in droves and the mermaid created controversy across the nation, but what was it really? Turns out that the Fiji Mermaid was simply the head and torso of a monkey sewn on to the back half of a fish.

A musical biopic centering around P.T. Barnum has been in the works for some time with Hugh Jackman attached to play Barnum, and now Variety is reporting that Zac Efron is currently in negotiations with Twentieth Century Fox to star in the film alongside Jackman. The project, titled THE GREATEST SHOWMAN ON EARTH, is considered to be a priority by the studio who would very much like to keep their relationship with Hugh Jackman going strong.

Zac Efron has been quite busy with both DIRTY GRANDPA and NEIGHBORS 2: SORORITY RISING debuting earlier this year and followed by MIKE AND DAVE NEED WEDDING DATES on July 8, 2016 and THE MASTERPIECE, an adaptation of Greg Sestero's "The Disaster Artist", likely to hit theaters before the year is out.