MUMBAI: Disney Channel’s High School Musical hit teen pop star Zac Efron will soon don the hat of film producer for the second time, The Hollywood Reporter (THR) reports. According to THR, Efron will star and produce in a new adaptation of John Grisham’s 2009 best-seller The Associate.

Efron is set to play the role of Kyle McAvoy, who grew up in his father’s small-town law office in York, Pennsylvania. He excelled in college, was elected editor-in-chief of The Yale Law Journal, and his future has limitless potential. But Kyle has a secret, a dark one, an episode from college that he has tried to forget.

The secret, though, falls into the hands of the wrong people, and Kyle is forced to take a job he doesn’t want - even though it’s a job most law students can only dream about. Three months after leaving Yale, Kyle becomes an associate at the largest law firm in the world, where, in addition to practicing law, he is expected to lie, steal, and take part in a scheme that could send him to prison, if not get him killed.

Efron will produce via his Ninja's Runnin Wild production house (That Awkward Moment), and Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher (Divergent) will produce through Red Wagon Entertainment. Michael Simkin and Nicki Cortese will oversee development.

The Associate was earlier set up at Paramount back in 2008, with Shia LaBeouf attached to star. Previous adaptations of Grisham's books include The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client, A Time to Kill, The Rainmaker and The Runaway.