At a New York Imax screening of “Spring Breakers,” Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco crashed the party, saying hello to hundreds of fans who showed up to watch A24’s bikini-clad drug bonanza on the nation’s second-largest screen.
Moviegoers shrieked as Gomez and Blanco made their surprise appearance, and one was heard saying, “Oh my God. I need to call everybody I know.”
“Hi guys,” Gomez said to the audience. “Did you guys enjoy one of my favorite movies ever?”
Gomez then pulled out her phone to take a selfie with the crowd at AMC Lincoln Square, promising to send it to “Spring Breakers” director “Harmony [Korine] and the girls,” referring to co-stars Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson and Rachel Korine.
During the short visit, Gomez and Blanco previewed a clubby track, “Bluest Flame,” off their upcoming album “I Said I Love You First,” and sent everyone home with a USB drive containing the yet-to-be-released song.
“The label is probably gonna shoot us, but, thanks guys,” Blanco said. As the pair exited the theater, Blanco said to the crowd, “Listen to that shit.”
Gomez starred in Harmony Korine’s R-rated 2013 crime comedy opposite James Franco, Hudgens, Benson, Rachel Korine and Gucci Mane. Gomez was 20 when the film premiered at Venice the year prior, and the movie was largely seen as an image-shattering move for the Disney star, who led “Wizards of Waverly Place” from 2007 to 2012.
In a 2024 interview with Variety, Gomez said she’s “proud” of “Spring Breakers” “despite its uniqueness.” At the time of its release, she told The New York Times that the film was “as far as I could go at this point in my life and career.”
“It’s me kind of taking baby steps. But I know that people will judge my involvement in the movie as a whole. I’m prepared to accept that,” she said.
