We like former “Veronica Mars” star Kristen Bell a great deal, but to say that she’s been done a disservice by her big screen roles so far is a something of an understatement. She probably had her best role as the titular ex in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” but even that part is perhaps the most genuinely unlikable, borderline-misogynistic female character in the Apatow stable so far. Since then, things have gotten even worse; in “Couples Retreat,” “When In Rome” and, from the looks of it, the upcoming “You Again,” she seems to have managed to find some of the worst scripts of their respective years.
She’s got the villain role in the Christina Aguilera-topliner “Burlesque” coming up before the end of the year, and now she’s in negotiations for something which is, in theory at least, a little more promising. Bell is circling the Working Title/Universal project “Whales,” previously announced as starring Drew Barrymore and John Krasinski as a Greenpeace activist and a news reporter respectively who, in 1988, teamed up to enlist the help of the USSR to rescue three whales trapped under Arctic ice. Bell will play an ambitious Los Angeles reporter “who thinks her greatest assets are her looks,” suggesting she may be leaning towards another of the semi-bitchy roles that seem to be becoming her trademark.
Ken Kwapis is helming; he was behind some of the best episodes of “The Office,” along with the hit “He’s Just Not That Into You.” It all sounds rather uninspiring and formulaic, but with a strongish cast, an interesting true-life premise, and Working Title’s track record, maybe it’ll prove a passable watch when we catch up with it on cable sometime in 2012. [Hollywood Reporter]