Josh Hutcherson, Zach Braff & More Join James Franco's IN DUBIOUS BATTLE

Principal photography commenced today in Georgia on James Franco's "In Dubious Battle" as a quintet of actors have signed on to join Franco, Selena Gomez, Vincent D'Onofrio, Robert Duvall, Ed Harris, Bryan Cranston, Nat Wolff, John Savage and Sam Shepherd in the much anticipated production from Andrea Iervolino and Lady Monika Bacardi's AMBI Pictures, Rabbit Bandini Productions and That's Hollywood Pictures Production.

The newest actors rounding out the cast are Josh Hutcherson ("The Hunger Games"), Zach Braff ("Garden State"), Analeigh Tipton ("Crazy, Stupid, Love") Ashley Greene ("Twilight" saga) and Ahna O'Reilly ("The Help").

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.

Producers are Andrea Iervolino ("The Humbling," "All Roads Lead to Rome"), Lady Monika Bacardi ("The Humbling," "All Roads Lead to Rome"), Scott Reed, Vince Jolivette, Ron Singer and Iris Torres.

The film is based on Steinbeck's gritty, realist style novel In Dubious Battle, which portrays the struggle between labor and capital in 1930s America as close to all out warfare.

Writer Matt Rager ("As I Lay Dying") adapted the feature screenplay based on the novel.

AMBI's worldwide sales division, AMBI Distribution, co-represents the film's domestic rights with CAA.

Published in 1936, In Dubious Battle is considered the first major work of Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Steinbeck. Set in a fictionalized valley in California, the story 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.

Photo by David Dettmann/David Fisher/Jonathan Hordle/Rex/REX USA

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