Kristen Bell saving "Whales"

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Kristen Bell is in negotiations to join Drew Barrymore and John Krasinski in "Whales," a fact-based project set during Cold War-era 1988.

The Working Title/Universal project follows a small-town news reporter (Krasinski) and a Greenpeace volunteer (Barrymore) who enlist the rival superpowers to save three gray whales trapped under the ice of the Arctic Circle.

Bell will play an ambitious Los Angeles reporter who thinks her greatest assets are her looks.

Ken Kwapis is attached to direct "Whales," which was formerly known as "Everybody Loves Whales." It is based on the nonfiction book "Freeing the Whales: How the Media Created the World's Greatest Non-Event" by Tom Rose.

Bell is coming off a starring gig in "When in Rome," and did a guest stint on the Starz comedy "Party Down." She next appears in Disney's September comedy "You Again" with Sigourney Weaver and Betty White, and Screen Gems' November musical drama "Burlesque," with Christina Aguilera and Cher.