Justin Timberlake stars in ‘Bad Teacher’

Justin Timberlake has nabbed the coveted role of the male lead in “Bad Teacher,” the Cameron Diaz comedy Jake Kasdan is directing for Columbia.

Molly Shannon and Eric Stonestreet (“Modern Family”) are also joining the cast.

The script, by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, follows a foul-mouthed, gold-digging seventh-grade teacher who, after being dumped by her boyfriend, sets her sights on a colleague (Lucy Punch) who is dating a substitute teacher, who also is the scion of a watch fortune.

Jason Segel was cast in the supporting role of a gym teacher, with John Michael Higgins slotted as the principal, but the studio has spent the better part of the new year looking though class photos trying to find its leading man.

John Krasinski, Joel McHale, Timothy Olyphant, Guy Pearce, Adam Scott and relative newcomer Cheyenne Jackson were in the mix for table reads and other tests.

Jimmy Miller is producing the feature, which starts filming this month in Los Angeles.

Timberlake seems to be making a concerted push into larger movie roles. After spending time in supporting parts in such movies as “Alpha Dog” and “The Love Guru,” this new role comes on the heels of him wrapping up a co-starring role in Columbia’s “The Social Network.”

Bad Teacher stars Cameron Diaz as a foul-mouthed, gold-digging seventh-grade teacher who, after being dumped by her boyfriend, sets her sights on a colleague (Punch) who is dating the school’s model teacher. Sony says Timberlake will play a key role as a substitute teacher, the “scion of a watch fortune.” Okay–so with Segel is playing the gym teacher and Higgins the principal, do we still not have our hottie male teacher? Columbia President Doug Belgrad commented: “With Justin, Molly and Eric, joining Cameron, Jason, Lucy and the rest of this dream comedy cast, we couldn’t be more excited about this movie. We love what we’ve seen of Justin’s performance in David Fincher’s The Social Network and he is a perfect match for this role.”