Selena Gomez, Petra Collins, and Drake are Making a Social Media Thriller
Nine years ago, Selena Gomez blew even her fanbase away with her breakout performance in the 2012 Harmony Korine film Spring Breakers. Apparently, she hasn’t finished just yet with the indie side of the industry. On Thursday, Deadline announced that the newly blonde singer-actor is set to star in Spiral, an upcoming psychological thriller directed by the photographer Petra Collins. It’s just the pair’s latest collaboration; Collins also directed Gomez in her “Fetish” and “Bad Liar” music videos, as well as in her short horror film A Love Story.
The plot of Spiral is familiar territory for Gomez. She’s set to play a former influencer whose addiction to social media is “causing her body to literally fall apart.” All involved of course already know their way around the top apps, but the crew also has an expert on hand: Melissa Broder, Twitter personality and author of the personal essay collection So Sad Today, drafted the first take on the script. It’s since been edited by the Euphoria and Assassination Nation producer Phoebe Fisher, who brought company: two of Euphoria’s executive producers, Future the Prince (Adel Nur) and none other than Drake. They’ll similarly serve as producers on the film.
From the sound of it, though, Spiral will bear more resemblance to Assassination Nation, a dystopia revenge fantasy about teen girls killing misogynists who circulate their nudes without their consent. From the sounds of it, there are also obvious parallels to the body horror genre, which stems from Frankenstein up to the films of David Cronenberg. “I love The Exorcist and the things that come from inside you,” Collins told Vanity Fair in 2018. “The things that are a little more subtle, and things that you deal with from inwards, and I feel like it’s something Selena and I both love talking about…that topic is sort of dear to us.” Seems like Spiral will be a welcome change for Gomez. She’s otherwise been keeping busy with her HBO cooking show and the upcoming comedy series Only Murders in the Building, opposite Steve Martin and Martin Short.
