The Thick of It creator Armando Iannucci hired to write Paddington 4 screenplay
Armando Iannucci, the Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated Glaswegian best known for creating hit TV shows Veep and The Thick of It, will write the upcoming fourth film in Studiocanal‘s hit Paddington franchise, alongside co-writer and long-time collaborator Simon Blackwell.
Paddington 4 will follow on from 2014’s hit movie Paddington, followed in 2017 by Paddington 2 and in 2024 with Paddington in Peru. The film series has had a combined global box office in excess of $800 million. The fourth Paddington movie was officially confirmed earlier this year at CinemaCon, with Studiocanal CEO and Canal+ Chief Content Officer Anna Marsh revealing that the film was in development, and that “world-renowned comedy writers” had been hired to work on the script.
Film trade publication Variety were first to confirm the news that Iannucci had been hired and stated that Dougal Wilson, the director of the third film in the series, is in talks to return.
Ben Whishaw voices Paddington in the films with Hugh Bonneville, Samuel Joslin, Madeleine Harris, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Simon Farnaby and Imelda Staunton also part of the large cast. Emily Mortimer took over the role of Mary Brown from Sally Hawkins for Paddington In Peru.
Iannucci has previously worked with Simon Blackwell to write The Thick of It, Veep, In the Loop and The Personal History of David Copperfield.
Born in Glasgow in 1963 to an Italian-Scottish family, Iannucci’s roots are closely tied to the north of the city. His father, Armando Sr, emigrated from Naples after the Second World War and later ran a pizza factory in Springburn.
His childhood home was near that of actor Peter Capaldi, who went on to play Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It. Iannucci went to school at St Peter's Primary in Partick, then St Aloysius College before studying at the University of Glasgow, then Oxford University.
After writing for BBC Scotland, he first gained major recognition in the 1990s through groundbreaking television work The Day Today, then co-creating I’m Alan Partridge with Steve Coogan, winning the BAFTA for Best Comedy Programme in 1998.
His reputation reached new heights with The Thick of It, the BBC political comedy that became famous for its fast-paced, brutal dialogue.
He successfully expanded into film with In the Loop in 2009, a cinematic spin-off from The Thick of It. The film earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay and won several British and Scottish film awards. He followed this success with The Death of Stalin, an internationally acclaimed political satire that won the European Film Award for Best Comedy.
In the United States, Iannucci created the HBO comedy Veep, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus. The series became a major critical success, winning multiple Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series.
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