Will movie finally happen?

Steve Coogan expects a decision this month on whether Alan Partridge will be making it to the movie screens.

'This is kind of make or break,' he told the BBC. 'In a month it'll be very clear whether we're going to do it or not.'

But Coogan said that he did not want to go ahead with a movie version without the involvement of writers Armando Iannucci and Peter Baynham.

Iannucci has previous expressed doubts about writing a Patridge movie with Coogan.

In one interview, he said: 'The idea of spending a year with Alan Partridge makes me sigh... not with Steve, but with Alan Partridge, because when Steve does Alan Partridge, he helps write just by being Alan, so when you're writing, you really feel like you're in the room with Alan Partridge.

'I have to say that if I have to write three or four months with him, you do want to throw a brick at him.'

'You have to get all the right elements,' he said. 'We're not going to do it unless we think we can do something really good.'

A Partridge movie has been rumoured for more than four years, with the original idea of his comeback from local radio thwarted when terrorists stormed the BBC offices said to have been dropped over heightened sensitivities.

Coogan also said he and comedian Rob Brydon were also about to start work on a film directed by Michael Winterbottom, who previously worked with them both on 2005's A Cock And Bull Story.

The new film is Murder in Samarkand, based on the the memoirs of Craig Murray, the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan. Steve Coogan will play the colourful diplomat.

Published: 8 Feb 2010