'Veep' Creator Armando Iannucci's Tweet About Donald Trump Might Become A Movie
Veep and In the Loop creator Armando Iannucci has built his career turning political idiocy into laugh-out-loud comedy, but now he might be tasked with plumbing the moronic depths of the current U.S. president's brain – and it's all thanks to Twitter.
Iannucci pitched a Donald Trump movie idea on the social media platform earlier this week, and a new report says that eight studios are already interested in turning his idea from a tweet into an actual film. Read the pitch below.
Film pitch.. Trump drugged and moved to a replica Whitehouse, where he carries on thinking he's governing. Millions spent on hiring actors to play his staff, Senators, news anchors, people at rallies.
There you go. Studios, your highest bid please.— Armando Iannucci (@Aiannucci) September 5, 2018
In case the original tweet gets deleted for some reason, it says: "Film pitch.. Trump drugged and moved to a replica Whitehouse [sic], where he carries on thinking he's governing. Millions spent on hiring actors to play his staff, Senators, news anchors, people at rallies. There you go. Studios, your highest bid please."
While Twitter can sometimes feels as if you're shouting into a void, it turns out that if you're Armando Iannucci, studios are actually paying attention. Deadline reports that eight studios have shown interest in the pitch, with one studio putting in a "big offer" yesterday morning.
Er...looks like Hollywood's interested. Now what do we do? https://t.co/oTB2KonqFO
— Armando Iannucci (@Aiannucci) September 6, 2018
The studios weren't the only ones who showed interest. Fans started responding with possible titles for the movie, suggesting things like The Trumpman Show (a play on The Truman Show, which, for the younger millennials out there, was a Jim Carrey movie with a vaguely similar premise) and Fake America Great Again. Plus, Veep star Julia Louis-Dreyfus proclaimed that she wants to come on board:
I'm in. https://t.co/6Wm36PxhAN
— Julia Louis-Dreyfus (@OfficialJLD) September 5, 2018
In a new tweet this morning, Iannucci calls the new offers "unexpectedly exciting" and says he's currently "mulling everything".
All unexpectedly exciting. Mulling everything. But the funniest and best way to see Trump out of office is to use your vote to stop him. Sadly, elected Republicans won't do anything to hold him to account ; so vote Democrat in the mid-terms. https://t.co/d3TNEbXfD6
— Armando Iannucci (@Aiannucci) September 7, 2018
Iannucci recently wrote and directed The Death of Stalin, a dark comedy about the power vacuum left in Russia when Joseph Stalin died and the bungling but ambitious politicians who stabbed each other in the back to take his place. A Donald Trump movie seems right up his alley.
As funny as Iannucci's pitch is, I'm so sick of Trump and everything he stands for that I'm not sure I'd want to sit in a theater and watch an impersonator pretend to be him for an hour and a half. Then again, if Iannucci were inexplicably able to somehow turn this into a documentary by actually kidnapping the real Trump and pulling off this elaborate ruse, I would absolutely watch that. We'll keep you updated on this one, because with eight studios already knocking at the door, it sounds like there will more to talk about soon.