Ricky Gervais & Stephen Merchant's 70's film picked up by Sony!

Over the next few weeks we are going to start hearing quite a bit about the previously titled The Men from the Pru (Prudential have forced them to change the title, or otherwise feel the wrath of lawsuits), as casting is well underway and Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the creators of The Office and Extras are gearing up to begin production. Variety report that Sony Intl. Motion Picture Production Group had picked up the film, the U.K. based Sony shingle whose first feature The Damned United opened yesterday. Speaking to The Guardian back in April of last year, Gervais revealed in detail their intentions with the film...

'It's a period piece for a couple of reasons,' he says. 'We wanted to show, for instance, that the sexual revolution was only really going on in Carnaby Street. Not Swindon. Not Reading. It is, essentially, about blue-collar people getting white-collar jobs.' And it is about people who would live and die in one town. 'Which was one of the big differences between then and now,' he says. '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.'

Gervais also revealed that at the time they were listening to Bruce Springsteen's Thunder Road to get themselves in the mood for the time period and the themes they want to portrary with their first movie together...

For the first time with a Gervais project, he won't be the lead... instead he's cast himself in small, supporting role. Expect lots of young Brits, probably the same ilke as the unknowns he plucked for his two t.v. shows to fill this cast.

via - /film