Paddington is about to develop a particularly hard stare, with The Thick of It and Veep creator Armando Iannucci set to write the bear’s next cinematic adventure.
Variety reported on Tuesday that the fourth Paddington film will be written by Iannucci and his longtime collaborator Simon Blackwell, who wrote with Iannucci on The Thick of It, In The Loop and Veep.
Iannucci co-created Alan Partridge with Steve Coogan and The Day Today with Chris Morris, and is particularly known for his political satires for television. The Thick of It, which was centred on the fictional UK government Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship, unleashed Malcolm Tucker on the world: the foul-mouthed and feared director of communications played by Peter Capaldi.
Iannucci also created Veep, his US political satire starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus as an incompetent and vicious vice-president, which won 17 Emmys, including two for Iannucci. His Thick of It spin-off film In the Loop, which he directed and co-wrote with Blackwell, Jesse Armstrong and Tony Roche, was nominated for an Academy Award for best adapted screenplay.
Iannucci also directed and co-wrote the 2017 black comedy The Death of Stalin, and directed 2019’s The Personal History of David Copperfield, which he also co-wrote with Blackwell.
When the fourth Paddington movie was announced earlier this year, the Studiocanal chief executive, Anna Marsh, said that “world-renowned comedy writers” had been hired to write it but revealed little else.
Variety also reported on Tuesday that Dougal Wilson, who made his feature directorial debut with the third film, Paddington in Peru, is in talks to return for the next instalment.
So far the Paddington franchise has made more than $800m (£594m, A$1.11bn) at the global box office. For a time Paddington 2 was the best-reviewed film on Rotten Tomatoes in the site’s history.
The first two films were directed by Paul King, who has since been enlisted to direct a Labubu film.