Paul Giamatti has been tapped to play paranormal radio host Art Bell in a new biopic movie from Radio Silence.
Giamatti recently starred in Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers, which earned him a nomination for the Best Actor Academy Award. He’ll also soon reprise his Harold Levinson in Focus Features’ Downton Abbey 3, which is scheduled to hit United States theaters this September.
Per Deadline, Giamatti has now been cast as Art Bell in a new film from Radio Silence. Amazon, Warner Bros. Pictures, and others are currently putting in bids for the project.
What is the new Paul Giamatti movie about?
“The pitch is a biopic about the late paranormal DJ Art Bell, who would broadcast his radio show from his home studio 65 miles west of Las Vegas, fielding unscreened telephone calls in a five-hour show on KNYE-FM called Coast to Coast,” Deadline’s article reads. “Guests would offer up eyewitness stories on Bell’s show about alien counters, past lives, time travel and more X-File-like situations. His 2018 New York Times obit noted that Bell claimed he and his wife spotted a ‘150-foot-long triangular craft’ above their car one night before it disappeared.”
The script comes from Sam Chalsen and Nelson Greaves. Sophie Cassidy and Jeff Katz will serve as producers.
Radio Silence is comprised of directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett. They have made segments in the horror anthology movies V/H/S and Southbound, while they’ve also helmed the feature films 2014’s Devil’s Due, 2019’s Ready or Not, 2022’s Scream, 2023’s Scream VI, and, most recently, 2024’s Abigail. They’re also working on a sequel to Ready or Not, which will see Samara Weaving reprise her role as Grace.
Giamatti notably co-hosts a podcast, Chinawag, with Stephen Asma that dives “deep (like, really, really deep) into the wilderness of the mind.”
