Variety reports that Sony International Motion Picture Co. is set to back Ricky Gervais‘ next film The Men At The Pru. The project started as a TV pilot, but it is now a feature film. It tells a coming-of-age tale about a group of men working at an insurance company in the 1970s. Gervais is co-writing, directing and producing with longtime creative partner Stephen Merchant. Production is set to begin this summer.
/Film found some quotes Ricky Gervais told The Observer:
Its a period piece for a couple of reasons. We wanted to show, for instance, that the sexual revolution was only really going on in Carnaby Street. Not Swindon. Not Reading.
So much, we forget, was door to door. Ten pence for a duster, the man from the pools, the insurance man; people saving a penny a time for their funeral. Tens of thousands of people knocking on doors. Also, you would get married at 18 and still live with your mum. And then, at that time, some would watch the telly, have their eyes opened to different countries. There’s a line in it where we have a character being asked, “What do you want to go abroad for, there are parts of Reading you haven’t seen?”, so it’s a bit like that.
We haven’t … the country hasn’t changed all that much, not in everything. Some things remain the same. Friendships. Love and death. All the big ones.
It is, essentially, about blue-collar people getting white-collar jobs.
It’s nice to see another Gervais project getting pushed ahead. He is one of my favorite comedians and I look forward to his next feature, This Side of The Truth, which comes out this September.
Do you like Gervais? What do you think of this project?