"Yeah, we are planning on making a movie. We're talking at the moment. What it is we’re not quite sure. But yes, there are plans afoot to make a film."
Now, as a huge Alan Partridge fan stretching back to his appearances on The Day Today, I'm excited about there being a movie in the pipeline (even though it's been on the cards for over a decade, I realize.) The stars seem to have aligned for it now, though: Steve Coogan's a cult star in America and has some heavyweight friends (Ben Stiller has already agreed to produce any Partridge movie), co-writer Peter Baynham won an Academy Award for his work on Borat, co-writer Patrick Marber had success with Closer, and co-writer/producer Armando Iannucci has started making inroads after the festival success of his political comedy In The Loop. Any project that brings those three creative minds together stands a good chance of getting bankrolled by a big Hollywood studio, I'd have thought. Or, more realistically, the UK's own Working Title would be crazy not to get involved with this.
But, I have a question: would an Alan Partidge movie work for worldwide audiences? I'm really not convinced the character is that funny if you're not British, for a number of reasons. Alan Partidge is a satire of British sports pundits, chat show hosts and bad local radio DJs. While I'm sure foreigners can find humour in Alan's bumbling nature and social faux pas, he still strikes me as a character that only "clicks" with his fellow countrymen. Just look at how many references to the minutae of British life he makes when speaking; a lot of that would go totally over the head of anyone not born-and-bred in the UK.
So, perhaps any Alan Partridge movie should target the British market theatrically and only chase foreign markets on DVD? That was what happened with Ali G Indahouse and, more recently, Lesbian Vampire Killers; relatively small British movies that stood a chance of recouping their investment through native interest in its comedy stars.
Right now, Steve Coogan's a few rungs below Ricky Gervais and Sacha Baron Cohen in terms of "cracking America". He's only vaguely familiar to Americans thanks to appearances in Tropic Thunder, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Hamlet 2 and Night At The Museum. Coogan's best work is still little-known in the States and entirely of British origin (The Day Today, Knowing Me, Knowing You, I'm Alan Partridge, 24 Hour Party People and A Cock & Bull Story), so only Anglophiles and Yanks with unusually broad comedy taste (i.e. people that don't only reference Monty Python and Fawlty Towers when asked about their favourite Britcom) really know about it.
News of an Alan Partridge movie has spread around the internet in the past few days, but it's noticeable how most of the US-based sites admit they have no knowledge of Partridge -- which seems to prove my point. And I do find that quite funny: in the UK, Coogan's almost pigeonholed as Alan Partridge and that character's success has limited his career somewhat, whereas in the US he gets to stretch his wings a lot more. But, the fact is, if you edited together all of Coogan's scenes from Tropic Thunder, Night At The Museum and Hamlet 2, the sum total of laughs from his "American career" is bested by this Alan Partridge scene.
