Zac Efron, the fresh-faced youngun who seemed ubiquitous during his High School Musical days, has been hard to spot in the last year-- since his soggy drama Charlie St. Cloud made almost no impact at the box office last summer, Efron hasn't appeared on screen at all. He's used that downtime, though, to shoot a ton of movies that we'll be seeing in the next year or so, from this December's mega-rom-com New Year's Eve to, unbelievably enough, the new film from auteur favorite Ramin Bahrani. If you were a big fan of Charlie St. Cloud though, don't worry-- Efron isn't done making you cry either.

Deadline reports that Warner Bros. has finally set a release date for the Efron-starring The Lucky One, an adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel-- yes, that guy who specializes in making people cry-- that stars Efron as an Iraq veteran who believes he was protected in the world by a photo of a mysterious woman. He then undertakes a mission to track down the woman, played by Taylor Schilling, the up-and-comer who had the misfortune of playing Dagny Taggart in last fall's on the cheap adaptation of Atlas Shrugged-- really, you've gotta watch this trailer. The Lucky One is set for release August 24 next year, which gives you almost exactly a year to stock up on tissues and try to decide if you'll be seeing that or The Expendables 2, which opens a week earlier.

As for Efron you'll also be seeing him in the Lee Daniels thriller The Paperboy, which is shooting now, as well as Liberal Arts, the new comedy from How I Met Your Mother star Josh Radnor that has "Zac Efron's Sundance debut" written all over it.