Kristen Bell will star opposite Melissa McCarthy in Universal’s upcoming comedy “Michelle Darnell.”
McCarthy is toplining the movie, which will shoot in March with Kathy Bates and Peter Dinklage also in the cast. McCarthy’s husband, Ben Falcone, is in the director’s chair.
The script, written by McCarthy and Falcone alongside their Groundlings collaborator Steve Mallory, centers on a titan of industry who is sent to prison after she’s caught for insider trading. When she emerges ready to rebrand herself as America’s latest sweetheart with the help of a former assistant, not everyone she screwed over is so quick to forgive and forget.
Bell will play the former assistant, a mousy single mother who is trying to start a cupcake business.
Bates is already onboard to play McCarthy’s tough, wealthy and eccentric mentor whom McCarthy’s character wants so badly to emulate.
Bell is currently on Showtime’s “House of Lies” and returns to voice Princess Anna in Disney’s Frozen short, “Frozen Fever.”
