selena joins paul rudd in ‘the revised fundamentals of caregiving’

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EXCLUSIVE: Selena Gomez has zeroed in on her next film role. The recording star and Wizards of Waverly Place actress is joining Ant-Man’s Paul Rudd in The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, directed by Emmy winner Rob Burnett. Rudd will star in the indie drama as Ben, a caregiver looking after a frustrated teenager named Trevor who is in the advanced stages of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Burnett, the veteran exec producer of Late Show With David Letterman, adapted the script from Jonathan Evison’s 2013 novel of the same name. Donna Gigliotti and James Spies are producing the Levantine Film and Worldwide Pants production. Gomez will play the role of Dot, a sassy 17-year-old who hitches a ride with the pair during a road trip, and whose forwardness and lack of embarrassment about Trevor’s condition causes him to develop a crush on her. Soon-to-be co-stars Gomez and Rudd were snapped Sunday night after theGolden Globes with writer/actor Justin Theroux, when a photo of the trio posted to Gomez’s Instagram garnered a modest 1.1 million likes. Filming on The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving begins January 22 in Atlanta. It’s the latest foray into indie film for Gomez, whose big screen credits include Ramona and Beezus, Monte Carlo, and Hotel Transylvania. A role in Harmony Korine’s racy Spring Breakers added street cred to her resume, and she was most recently seen in William H. Macy’s directorial debut Rudderless, which premiered last year at Sundance. Gomez next reprises her voice role in Sony’s animated sequel Hotel Transylvania 2 opposite Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg. Offscreen, the global star who has over 26 million Twitter followers recently signed with Interscope Records after a long run with Disney’s Hollywood Records. She’s repped by WME, Brillstein Partners, and Ziffren Brittenham.

selena & james franco reuniting on big screen for 'in dubious battle.'

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Selena Gomez has snagged another movie role, and this time she'll be sharing the screen with James Franco once again! E! News confirms that the brunette beauty, who is currently filming Fundamentals of Caregiving, is reuniting with her Spring Breakers co-star for In Dubious Battle, based on John Steinbeck's gritty, realist novel of the same name, which portrays the economic struggle between labor and capital in 1930s America as close to all-out warfare. Franco will also be directing the film, which has a star-studded cast that includes Vincent D'Onofrio, Robert Duvall, Ed Harris, Bryan Cranston and Danny McBride. LOOK: Selena Gomez lights up on set According to the press release, In Dubious Battle is "set in a fictionalized valley in California" and "explores themes Steinbeck continued to develop: group behavior, social injustice, man's inhumanity to man—all themes which continue to be relevant today. "A labor conflict between migrant apple pickers and the local growers' association is the backdrop against which Jim Nolan (Franco) becomes involved in the labor movement and rapidly matures as he learns what it means to do organizational fieldwork." Back in March 2013, Gomez admitted that Franco "freaked me out" while filming Spring Breakers, which was probably because she didn't even meet him until he showed up to film his scenes as a drug-dealing gangster. "He stayed in character the whole time and luckily for me, my character was creeped out by him, because I genuinely was at first," the actress told David Letterman at the time. "We shot the movie for four weeks, then he came in and walked on set as his character and freaked me out," Gomez continued. "That's who I knew, until we started doing press and I realized he's one of the most intelligent people I've ever met."

james franco leads ensemble cast for steinbeck adaptation 'in dubious battle'

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James Franco has assembled an all-star cast that includes Selena Gomez, Vincent D’Onofrio, Robert Duvall, Ed Harris, Bryan Cranston and Danny McBride for his adaptation of the John Steinbeck novel In Dubious Battle. AMBI Group, the movie development, finance, production and distribution group owned and run by Andrea Iervolino and Lady Monika Bacardi, is financing the film and producing with Rabbit Bandini Productions and That’s Hollywood Pictures Production. Writer Matt Rager (As I Lay Dying) adapted the feature screenplay based on the novel. Principal photography on the film will commence in March. The movie continues Franco’s fascination with Steinbeck; the actor -turned-filmmaker recently made his Broadway debut with a revival of Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. The novel, published in 1936, told of man who tries to organize a strike by fruit pickers in Southern California. AMBI will introduce the project in Berlin and handle international sales. AMBI will co-represent the film’s domestic rights with CAA.