Steve Coogan has written the screenplay for an upcoming project based on Richard III’s remains being found under a car park, and plans to appear on-screen too.
The story of Richard III’s royal bones being exhumed from a Leicester car park back in 2014 remains one of the more incredible real-life stories to emerge from the last decade. Now, actor Steve Coogan has revealed to BBC Radio 2’s Zoe Ball that he has plans to produce and release a film based upon the rather amazing unearthing.
Coogan has written the script and will feature on-screen as the husband of Philippa Langley, the writer who drove the project to find the king’s remains. The film is set to shoot and release in 2021 and is thought to be titled The Lost King.
Whilst Coogan didn’t offer much more in terms of details, and no casting (besides himself) has been announced, he did confirm to presenter Zoe Ball on her breakfast show that the film would be happening. This confirms a long-running story that Coogan was looking to adapt the events into a film following a visit to the Richard III Visitor Centre in 2017 when he talked about the possibility of a film adaptation, stating ‘this Richard film is about the amateur versus the establishment, and intuition versus academia.’
The film joins several others that Coogan has on his slate as a producer, including a comedy drama written by author Zadie Smith and Cruise Of The Gods, a co-production with Ben Stiller that has more than a whiff of Galaxy Quest about it (the original BBC show of it that Coogan co-starred in remains a flat-out favourite). However, confirmation of The Lost King shooting next year means that we may well be seeing this one first. More news as we have it.
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