Zac Efron is transformed in the new trailer for Stan’s original film ‘Gold’

If your only knowledge of Zac Efron is of him in High School Musical, prepare for that image to be utterly incinerated with the trailer for his new Australian film. 

Stan has released the first trailer for its latest original film, Gold, which stars the Hollywood actor in his first Aussie project.

Directed by Animal Kingdom actor Anthony Hayes (who also co-stars in the film), it sounds like quite the intense viewing experience. The survival thriller film sees Efron and Hayes play two strangers who happen upon a huge nugget of gold whole travelling through the desert, which leads them to start dreaming of their huge future wealth.

While Hayes leaves to secure better equipment to excavate the gold, Efron’s character must wait and endure the searing desert environment, lurking animals, and hostile intruders. After days with little contact with Hayes, and with his supply of water and food starting to run low, two strangers arrive on the scene and threaten to derail things even further.

The term ‘edge of your seat’ feels appropriate here. Fortune and greed, tension and suspicion, Gold sounds like an Aussie version of There Will Be Blood. Aside from everything else, props to the makeup department on the film for turning one of the most beautiful men in the world into the dusty and rusty struggler we see in the trailer.

Gold was developed and financed through the South Australian Film Corporation and filmed in the state’s Flinders Ranges region at the end of 2020. And Stan couldn’t have picked a better day for the film to drop: Gold will begin exclusively streaming on the platform this Australia Day, Wednesday, January 26th.

Stan’s investment in Gold was part of its plan to make as many as 30 local productions a year over the next five years. The Tourist, starring Jamie Dornan, is set to arrive on January 2nd, while the Sam Worthington thriller Transfusion will also hit Stan next year.

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Check out the trailer for Gold:

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