“Veep” creator Armando Iannucci reportedly said he’s facing major hurdles raising money for a new screen project centered on President Donald Trump’s speeches.
Potential backers fear retaliation from the Trump administration, an issue that’s come to the fore with the Jimmy Kimmel suspension controversy, Iannucci told journalist Krishnan Guru-Murthy during an event for the not-for-profit Creative UK at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, England, reported Deadline.
Read the full report at Deadline.
“I got a lot of, ‘Yeah, you wouldn’t get the money for that at the moment, I’m afraid,’” Iannucci reportedly recalled. “So I said, ‘Why not?’ ‘Well, you know, if you want what comes with it…’”
Iannucci said journalists in the United States have told him: “If you’re on the list, your life is made miserable, the inland revenue will come calling, you better lawyer up, you will spend the next four years just weighed down by legal issues you have to get through.” The project isn’t completely shelved but Iannucci acknowledged he may need to seek funding outside the U.S.
The Scottish satirist, who also created British political classics “The Thick Of It” and “In The Loop” before making HBO’s Emmy-winning “Veep,” has long been outspoken against Trump.
While the exact nature of his new project is unknown, he did in 2018 float a tongue-in-cheek movie pitch in which Trump is “drugged and moved to a replica White House, where he carries on thinking he’s governing.”
The project, he joked, would involve “millions spent on hiring actors to play his staff, Senators, news anchors, [and] people at rallies.” “Veep” star Julia Louis-Dreyfus endorsed the idea and one online commentator quipped it should be called “Fake America Great Again.”
Iannucci also argued in 2017 that Trump isn’t simply “a clown” and definitely “not an idiot” but “just deranged” and actually “his own satirist” because he’s so over the top. See that commentary here: