Paul Bettany Will Play the Unabomber in Discovery Channel Drama Manifesto

With the True Crime genre becoming increasingly popular in a rapidly evolving television medium, the Discovery Channel are preparing a fascinating scripted offering that chronicles the exploits of the FBI in some of their best-known cases. Titled Manifesto, the network apparently has ambitious designs for the new series, evidenced by the acquisition of a high-profile actor set to play one of the United States’ most notorious domestic terrorists.

Deadline reports that Paul Bettany will star in the debut season of Manifesto, playing Ted Kaczynski, better known in the annals of history as the Unabomber. A former Harvard student, who became radicalized against industrialization and technology, Kaczynski targeted universities with mailed homemade bombs from 1978-1995, eluding authorities and garnering a public mystique, notably from an iconic mustachioed, aviators-sporting hoodie-wearing composite sketch. His eventual arrest in 1996 by the FBI was the culmination of one of the agency’s most exorbitant investigations.

The premiere season of the anthology series will focus primarily on FBI agent Jim “Fitz” Fitzgerald, who was an integral part of Kaczynski's capture in a remote Montana cabin – forever creating the juxtaposition of unkempt naturalists in cabins in the woods with eccentric terrorists. Using his skills as a linguist, Fitzgerald discovered the Unabomber’s identity through intricate analysis of the infamous “Manifesto," which was published in 1995 by The New York Times and The Washington Post under threat of more attacks.

For the London-born Paul Bettany, who starred in notable films such as A Beautiful MindMaster and Commander: The Far Side of the World and The Da Vinci Code, he fields this most intriguing part in Manifesto as Unabomber Ted Kaczynski amidst other major projects on his docket like thriller Official Secrets opposite Harrison Ford, Anthony Hopkins and Natalie Dormer, war drama Journey’s End and, of course, a reprisal of his Marvel Cinematic Universe role as android hero Vision in the 2018 mega-movie Avengers: Infinity War.

In the aftermath of Discovery’s recent scripted plunge with miniseries Harley and the Davidsons, Bettany’s Unabomber will headline the prestige-imbued Manifesto, with Kevin Spacey and Dana Brunetti set as executive producers. It will certainly be interesting to see Bettany – who was memorable in The Da Vinci Code as an extremist, penance-rope-rocking murderous monk – tap into his inner reclusive manifesto-composing killer.