Firestarter Continues An Annoying Zac Efron Career Trend

Zac Efron is a proven star who has given great performances since breaking through in 2006, but his career has been stifled by a frustrating trend.

Firestarter Continues An Annoying Zac Efron Career Trend

Zac Efron is a great actor but an annoying career trend that continued with Firestarter is holding him back. In Firestarter, Efron stars as Andy McGee, the father of a girl who can create and control fire with her mind. Although Zac Efron’s performance has been praised, the adaptation of Stephen King’s novel has received largely negative reviews, which continues a frustrating pattern in his career.

Zac Efron’s breakthrough role came in Disney’s High School Musical, and he then went on to star in several teen movies, including 17 Again and Hairspray. In the 2010s, Efron took on more varied roles where he proved his knack for comedy, and his portrayal of Ted Bundy in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile demonstrated that he could play serious characters just as well. The 34-year-old has covered nearly every genre in his career already, and now there are calls for Zac Efron to appear in the MCU. Efron’s career to date, though, has been plagued by an annoying trend.

Zac Efron’s talents are so often squandered in the sub-par movies he has starred in, and Firestarter continues his habit of picking bad projects. Although he gives a good performance in Firestarter, not even his star quality is able to save the movie, which wastes its interesting premise. Efron has starred in excellent films which have enabled him to showcase his range, including his self-aware comedic performance in Neighbors and his co-starring role with Hugh Jackman in The Greatest Showman. But his great roles are constantly undermined by the poor movies he subsequently finds himself in.

Almost every Zac Efron hit is soon followed by a disappointing miss. His co-starring role in Baywatch alongside the box-office heavyweight Dwayne Johnson was critically panned, and his double act with Robert De Niro in Dirty Grandpa was named the worst film ever made by various critics. The failure of these sorts of films is generally not because of the acting ability of Zac Efron or his fellow castmates; it is almost always down to bad writing.

Efron has been in Hollywood for nearly two decades now and shouldn’t need to settle for underwhelming scripts. In 2020, he branched out to create the travel documentary Down to Earth with Zac Efron, where his passion for nature and sustainability were clear to see. That sort of passion needs to be reflected in the movies Efron chooses to star in, or else he is at risk of losing credibility in the industry. The actor’s future still looks promising, and some are already suggesting that Zac Efron’s first Oscar nomination will come from his role in The Greatest Beer Run Ever. Zac Efron has proven that he is a reliable actor who can elevate his films. Still, going forward, he needs to be more selective about the movies he stars in to break his frustrating career trend of hits and misses, which continued with Firestarter.