Former Disney teenybopper AJ Michalka (High School Musical) has been cast in J.J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg’s hush-hush sci-fi collaboration Super 8. The 19-year-old starlet joins a cast headlined by Elle Fanning (Dakota’s sister) and Kyle Chandler (“Friday Night Lights”).

She tweets:

Amazing news! I was just cast in J.J. Abrams’ and Steven Spielberg’s highly anticipated film Super 8 🙂

Super 8 is reportedly set in the ’70s or ’80s and centers on a group of kids who discover an alien creature in a frame of the super 8mm movie they are making. A teaser-trailer can be seen here.

Michalka’s last cinematic outing was in Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones.