Satirist teases the subject of his next movie

Armando Iannucci is planning a satirical movie set in the world of social media.

Details of the project are scant, but The Thick Of It and Veep creator first began talking about making a TV series set in Silicon Valley almost a decade ago.

However the success of his films such as  The Death of Stalin and The Personal History of David Copperfield mean  he is now considering making it for big screen next year.

As long ago as 2012, when The Thick Of It was coming to an end, he reflected on how power no longer lay with politicians.

’I'm thinking about the power of the internet. Microsoft, Google, Facebook’ he told The Guardian. ‘You have these twentysomethings who have a way into billions of households. Where's the power gone? The power is gravitating towards these companies.

‘I'm also interested in that personal thing of what it does to you when you're 25 and you're a multibillionaire and everyone in the world knows who you are.’

And in a 2015 interview he said he was interested in the notions of being ‘cancelled’ as detailed in Jon Ronson’s So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, explaining: ‘That’s an interesting area, the way the crowd can suddenly turn nasty and ugly within minutes of something happening. It’s like an infection, or a mass hysteria. It’s kind of spooky.’

Iannucci revives speculation about the project in an interview with Times Radio die to air tomorrow.

But he said he is not opposed to all technology that emanates from Californian tech giants, explaining how he had to say goodbye to his dying 95-year-old mother via FaceTime because she was in a care home during lockdown. ‘I’m glad that there were things like FaceTime, and Zoom to allow at least some semblance of contact to happen,’ he said.

The full interview with Matt Chorley will be broadcast on Times Radio from 11am tomorrow.

Published: 22 Dec 2021