Chortle are reporting that comedian Steve Coogan and director Michael Winterbottom are looking to collaborate on a fourth film together with a biopic of Brit pornographer and strip club owner Paul Raymond. Titled Paul Raymond's Wonderful World of Erotica, the film is setup at Winterbottom's Revolution Films and Film Four...
Raymond was a legendary Soho figure who opened Britains first strip club Raymond Revuebar in 1958 and published the magazines Razzle, Mayfair and Men Only. He put his money into property, and came to own large tracts of Londons West End before dying a multimillionaire recluse in 2008.
Paul Willet, who wrote the biography of Raymond last year titled Members Only: The Life and Times of Paul Raymond which will make the basis of the film revealed Coogan's 'well advanced' involvement at a public talk at Westminster Reference Library over the weekend. Matt Greenlaugh, who previously adapted a biography of Joy Divison's Ian Curtis into the script for Control and also the Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy, has scribed. No word on what angle the film will take but I guess Raymond was Brit's answer to Hugh Hefner before then becoming something of a Howard Hughes-recluse, so there's plenty of scope but I imagine it'll be the wild and raucous periods the film centers on. Coogan/Winterbottom previously gave us 24 Hour Party People, A Cock and Bull Story and most recently The Trip, all I'm sure you will agree are immensely re-watchable and news of a fourth collaboration comes very welcomed in these quarters. Especially based on such a rich tapestry as Raymond's career. Winterbottom is gearing up to film the Jack Black comedy Bailout next, but we could definitely see this one gearing up before camera's next year. Meanwhile Coogan keeps teasing an Alan Partridge big screen movie....