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Chace Crawford Replaces Zac Efron in Footloose Musical

by Alex Billington
May 19, 2009

Late last year it was announced that High School Musical heartthrob Zac Efron would star in Paramount's big screen Footloose musical. But then in March, he dropped out, saying that he didn't want to do yet another musical so soon. So who did they find to replace him? Variety has confirmed that "Gossip Girl" star Chace Crawford will take the lead instead. I don't know many people who watch "Gossip Girl" so most probably not know who he is. Chase has only starred in The Haunting of Molly Hartley so far, but is also part of Joel Schumacher's upcoming film Twelve. Shooting is scheduled to start in March of next year.

Paramount is developing this as a "more mature, edgy version" of Footloose than the original, and will draw on the older fans of "Gossip Girl" more than the tween Efron fans. High School Musical and Miley Cyrus favorite Kenny Ortega is directing this update Footloose. For most of you, switching from Efron to Crawford is not going to mean anything, and isn't much of an improvement. However, I honestly would've preferred Efron, as he did a pretty good job in Hairspray. There's not much more to really say about this casting news and I'll probably wait until we see some footage before I say anything else about Crawford's casting.

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Related categories: Casting, Movie News